Electricity North West launches Storm Arwen resilience fund
3rd October 2022
Communities throughout Cumbria, Lancashire, Derbyshire and Cheshire have an opportunity to be awarded a share of £500,000 through a fund designed to improve resilience. The region’s power network operator, Electricity North West, has launched the new Storm Arwen Community Resilience Fund and is now welcoming applications.
The fund is aimed at groups and organisations that supported communities throughout one of the worst storms the North West has ever seen. Grants of up to £10,000 are being made available and in exceptional circumstances, grants of up to £15,000 will be considered.
Stephanie Trubshaw, Electricity North West’s customer director, said: “The level of community support shown during Storm Arwen last year was amazing and something we want to support and learn from.
“We want to be able to ensure the good work continues in the future should adverse weather cause disruption again and that’s why we’re launching our new Storm Arwen Resilience Fund.
“The fund is aimed at organisations and groups to support the welfare of their residents in such events. The criteria we’ve set out is fairly open as we want communities to tell us what matters to them in a time of need.”
During Storm Arwen, 93,000 properties lost power across the North West after winds reached 74mph and tens of thousands of trees came down, pulling down power lines and snapping electricity poles. Electricity North West restored 18,000 properties automatically within three minutes and over 600 engineers battled the elements restoring 90% of customers within 48 hours, despite continuing winds.
The fund is in addition to the £6m the power network has invested in winter preparations this year to reduce the impact on or customers through severe weather events.
The fund is eligible to local volunteer-led organisations, not-for-profit community organisations, local registered charities and parish councils.
Applicants must be based in or provide a service to eligible communities, which are defined as those which were off electricity supply for 72 hours or more during Storm Arwen in November 2021 within the postcodes listed https://www.cumbriafoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/72-Hour-Postcodes.pdf
Examples of projects supported could be permanently installed generators, new or improved hot food and drink facilities or an improved community communications hub but ENWL will consider any request that meets the two principal criteria of Resilience and Vulnerability. It has been a principle of the fund since its first conception that ENWL do not intend to define the types of projects that will be supported, as they recognise that communities will know what will help them most to prepare for future emergency events.
Electricity North West is working alongside Cumbria Community Foundation who will be administering the fund across the whole of the North West. In Cumbria specifically, one of the worst-hit areas during Storm Arwen, potential applicants can receive application support from ACTion with Communities in Cumbria (ACT).
Link to ENWL Storm Arwen Community Resilience Fund https://www.cumbriafoundation.org/fund/enwl-storm-arwen-community-resilience-fund/
For more information, contact:
Ellen Clements, Senior Grants & Programmes Officer
ellen@cumbriafoundation.org or 01900 820824
Additional support available in Cumbria:
ACTion with Communities in Cumbria (ACT) are providing wraparound support to eligible community groups in Cumbria to assist with making an application. We would encourage all applicants to contact Jozi Brown at ACT on 01768 425648 or by email on JoziBrown@cumbriaaction.org.uk
Successful applicants will need to work with ACT to show how any capital improvements will be sustained and kept as a community asset in the longer term.