Arriva Rail North (Northern) took over the Northern rail franchise in April 2016 and as part of their franchise commitments they have made available two pots of money for Station Adoption groups and Community Rail partnerships to bid into.
The Northern Community Rail Station Adoption Fund is a £100k fund and is provided to facilitate the activities of Station Adoption Groups. It will also provide Personal Protective Equipment and may, in the future, be used to help fund larger items on stations subject to guidance from Community Rail Executive Group (ComREG) and to take up of the fund as it stands. It can be used as match funding but this is not a requirement.
We are asking all Station Adoption groups to produce a simple annual plan. We expect no more than an outline of what the group hopes to achieve through the year and how much it is likely to cost. We are not expecting a sophisticated project plan but we do want groups to be able to monitor their own success.
The application process and application form can be downloaded by clicking the link here – Station Adoption Fund.
The Northern Seed Corn Fund is a £150k fund and is provided to kick-start projects. It is not generally envisaged that the Fund will pay the full cost of a finished project but that it will enable the initial scoping and development work to be done that can unlock other funding sources. It will facilitate development of business cases and enable design such that costs can be identified with moderate confidence. It can be used as match funding but this is not a requirement.
The fund is very much about innovation: it cannot be used for projects which Northern has committed to in its franchise and at this stage we really cannot predict what it might be used for: that is up to our community partners to define.
There will be no requirement to repay funds if a project does not proceed: if it enables a clear understanding of the costs, benefits and risks of a project to be identified such that it is shown that there is no robust business case, that in itself would be a successful outcome as it would avoid further wasted resources. That said, it is not envisaged that funding would be granted if the project was not viewed as having a reasonable likelihood of success and that it had benefits to passengers, stakeholders or local communities
The application process and application form can be downloaded by clicking the link here – Seed Corn Fund.