First Thriving Communities Fund grants recommend for approval
28 Jan 2025
The first grants under the new Thriving Communities Fund, investing in projects to benefit the health and wellbeing of West Suffolk residents, are to be decided.
West Suffolk Council’s Grant Working Party has recommended an investment of more than £260,000 into the work of 44 separate projects across West Suffolk run by community groups, charities and other voluntary organisations. The council’s Cabinet will decide on the recommendations when it meets next Tuesday.
The work the fund will help deliver is part of the council’s strategic priority for Thriving Communities. Projects recommended for funding include initiatives to help people who are struggling with the cost of living, to build skills and confidence, to provide specialist emotional and practical support to people that have experienced different types of traumatic experiences, to provide youth activities to boost wellbeing, family support, and to help people who feel isolated or lonely.
The Thriving Communities Fund, which launched in July, replaced the previous Community Chest scheme with a simpler, streamlined application process designed to encourage smaller community organisations to apply.
The fund is part of a package of close to £650,000 of community support for 2025-26 agreed by West Suffolk Council’s Cabinet in May. That package includes:
- £266,733 available under the Thriving Communities Fund for 2025-26
- £200,000 a year for three years for Citizen’s Advice West Suffolk to support the Council’s agenda to work with families and communities.
- £179,200 under the councillor locality budget scheme. Each of West Suffolk’s 64 councillors has a locality budget of £2,800 a year to support community initiatives that will benefit residents in their ward area with grants available from £100 and above.
The new Thriving Communities Fund made two levels of grants available:
- Community grants of between £2,000 and £8,000 for one-off projects by community groups, that will support residents in a small part of the district such as an estate or village.
- Larger grants of between £8,001 and £20,000 to fund work that will support residents across the whole of West Suffolk or big parts of the district such as a town. The council retained its discretion to take each application on its merits and grant a smaller amount.
The scheme was oversubscribed with 77 applications totalling close to £1m. While 23 of those didn’t meet the scheme criteria, the council was able to help 13 of these instead secure total of £58,639 community funding through money allocated to the council from Government under the Rural England Prosperity Fund.
The Grant Working Party met three times to look into the detail of the 54 applications which totalled close to £800,000.
Cllr Jon London, chair of the Grant Working Party, said: “As a cross-party group we have made recommendations that will hopefully deliver the most positive impact on the lives of our residents across our towns and villages in West Suffolk. We’ve recommended funding that will benefit the health and wellbeing of individuals and families, and people of all ages, providing everything from youth activities to addressing loneliness and rural isolation, specialist trauma support and help with the day-to-day struggles from the cost-of-living crisis.
“There’s so much great work by community groups, by charities and other voluntary organisations to help people in our communities and I look forward to the Cabinet discussion next week.”
Cllr Donna Higgins, Cabinet Member for Families and Communities at West Suffolk Council, said: “These are the first applications under the new Thriving Communities Fund. It was designed to encourage more applications from community groups alongside those of charities social enterprises and voluntary organisations and that has been illustrated in the volume of applications this year. I would like to thank Cllr London and all of the members of the Grant Working Party for the many hours they have spent looking at the detail of these applications and I look forward to discussing their recommendations with Cabinet colleagues next week.”
Applicants who won’t receive money from the Thriving Communities Fund or the full amount applied for, will be offered support including directing them to other grants within the council as well as other appropriate sources of local and national funding.
The table below outlines the Grant Working Party funding recommendations
| Who and what for | Amount |
|---|---|
| The Lightwave community interest organisation Beck Row and Red Lodge Access to food: Food bank project to tackle food poverty and dietary health combined with classes on how to create healthy meals in slow cookers using fresh ingredients. | £1,489 |
| Still Good Food Bury St Edmunds Access to food: Reducing food waste by making surplus food donated by local organisations, available to the community for a small donation. | £5,085 |
| Bury St Edmunds Rickshaw Bury St Edmunds Cost of living support: Delivering excess food to people in need and food parcels to vulnerable individuals who have been referred for help. | £3,830 |
| Abbeycroft -Explore Outdoor West Suffolk Cost of living support: Family Park cooking for parents and children who receive pupil premium support and free school meals. Each family receives ingredients and recipes to make five meals for four people | £6,572 |
| BME Suffolk Support Group Bury St Edmunds Cost of living support: Welfare support to individuals and families to help them resolve hardship that has resulted from the cost-of-living crisis. | £6,000 |
| Bridge Community Church Bury St Edmunds Cost of living support: Bridge Family Hub for work including community grocery helping struggling individuals and families with low cost food alongside support to try to address poverty, look at finances, benefits entitlement and other help available. | £10,000 |
| REACH Community Projects Haverhill Cost of living support: Foodbank and financial support with the aim of prevention and tackling underlying causes of poverty. | £5,000 |
| Art Branches community interest company West Suffolk Health and wellbeing: Creative workshop for adults aged 18-30. Project to run 8 half day sessions from the Newbury Community Centre offering new skills for young people with health inequalities. | £6,000 |
| Haverhill Men’s Shed Haverhill Health and wellbeing: Project providing opportunities to support men with anxiety and mental health. | £7,810 |
| Project 21 West Suffolk Health and wellbeing: Fitness workshop for people with Down Syndrome alongside support and guidance on accessing social care funding and other support. | £5,000 |
| Second Chance Stroke Survivors Bury St Edmunds Health and wellbeing: To provide support for individuals and families offering a safe and supportive environment. | £2,000 |
| Steel Bones West Suffolk Health and wellbeing: To encourage amputees to lead Steel Bones Hub providing peer support to amputees. | £6,320 |
| Abbeycroft – Stand Tall West Suffolk Health and wellbeing: A free to access programme delivered by Abbeycroft and Suffolk Mind for 11-19-year-olds, to support their wellbeing and develop emotional resistance. | £6,000 |
| Bury Drop In Bury St Edmunds Health and wellbeing: Support, signposting and healthy nutritious meals twice a week to people who are homeless including people who are rough sleeping. | £16,000 |
| Catch 22 Suffolk West Suffolk Health and wellbeing: Free boxing sessions in Brandon, Mildenhall, and Newmarket to help young people becoming more physically active and improve their physical and mental wellbeing, as well as providing a safe space to burn off energy. | £6,000 |
| Cruse Bereavement Support West Suffolk Health and wellbeing: Towards delivering personalised specialist support to an estimated 100 bereaved adults in West Suffolk. | £1,000 |
| EPIC Dad community interest company West Suffolk Health and wellbeing: Toward delivering family support services for over 300 people in West Suffolk. | £4,500 |
| Families Together Suffolk West Suffolk Health and wellbeing: Funding toward two free weekly groups for families with children under five years old, designed to improve wellbeing, parent-child bonds, and reduce feelings of isolation. | £12,000 |
| Green Light Trust West Suffolk Health and wellbeing: Woodland programme offering mental health and wellbeing support. | £3,000 |
| Home-Start in Suffolk West Suffolk Health and wellbeing: Providing support to families in their own homes to help address challenges such as isolation, mental health issues and special educational needs. | £18,000 |
| Hope after Suicide Loss West Suffolk Health and wellbeing: Support for people bereaved by suicide. | £1,000 |
| National Horseracing Museum Newmarket Health and wellbeing: Funding toward creative art classes for adults and young people not in employment, education, or training. | £4,500 |
| Oblique Arts Newmarket Health and wellbeing: Funding toward Music for Wellbeing programme and a Walk Draw programme supporting active lifestyles, mental and physical wellbeing, community cohesion and accessibility to the arts and nature for vulnerable people. | £2,703 |
| Our Special Friends West Suffolk Health and wellbeing: For animal companionship support services. | £7,500 |
| PACT Suffolk West Suffolk Health and wellbeing: To deliver advice and support to parents and carers who look after a young person with a mental health issue. | £10,000 |
| Rural Coffee Caravan West Suffolk Health and wellbeing: Delivering support and information to rural communities, helping combat isolation and loneliness. | £5,000 |
| Sporting Memories Foundation Bury St Edmunds Health and wellbeing: For project supporting a wide range of people aged 50-plus, including those living with dementia, living with depression or facing isolation and loneliness to improve their mental and physical wellbeing. | £4,500 |
| Suffolk Accident Rescue Service West Suffolk Health and wellbeing: To support work offering immediate and advanced medical care to people who have been in an accident. | £5,000 |
| Suffolk Mind West Suffolk Health and wellbeing: For counselling and anxiety management. | £5,748 |
| The Voluntary Network Newmarket Health and wellbeing: Funding for befriending service providing companionship to people aged 60 and over who feel isolated and lonely. | £5,000 |
| Outreach Youth Brandon Youth engagement: Project to deliver LGBTQ+ youth group meeting monthly for 11 to 18-year-olds, offering peer support to parents and caregivers | £1,000 |
| The Offshoot Foundation West Suffolk Youth engagement: Film making workshops for people aged from 10 to 16 years old. The sessions contribute positively to their confidence and health and wellbeing. | £3,000 |
| Game Anglia community interest company West Suffolk Youth engagement: Skills building programme to empower 14-18-year-olds to create digital interactive stories. | £2,000 |
| Haverhill Community Trust Haverhill Youth engagement: Early intervention for young people suffering low mood, lack of confidence and isolation. | £5,000 |
| Lyward Colley Trust community interest company West Suffolk Youth engagement: Core subject tutoring in English, maths and life skills to children and young people struggling in mainstream education settings and/ or with Special Educational Needs. | £5,760 |
| Mildenhall Town Football Club Mildenhall Youth engagement: To create a community space to be used free of charge for social activities including arts and crafts, table tennis, cars and as a community hub. It will provide a safe space for young people to socialise and will also be used by Mildenhall Town FC’s youth base. | £5,000 |
| St Nicholas Hospice Care West Suffolk Youth engagement: Funding towards a child therapist to support bereaved children in West Suffolk. | £10,936 |
| Suffolk Family Carers West Suffolk Youth engagement: Providing youth engagement opportunities for young carers. | £8,000 |
| Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds Youth engagement: For Doorstep Festival designed to make high quality arts accessible to young people. It will provide schools with the opportunity to host a performance by a leading specialist theatre company followed by creative learning workshops. | £6,000 |
| Vogue Athletics community interest company Newmarket Youth engagement: Project to offer young parents and baby toddler groups, and people with special education needs from low-income households to take part in gymnastics and related activities. | £5,000 |
| Alumah community interest organisation Brandon Community safety: Project supporting children and young people who live in a family where there is domestic abuse of an abusive relationship. | £8,000 |
| Brave Futures West Suffolk Community safety: Project to help children and young people who have experienced sexual abuse as well as support for parents or carers. | £3,000 |
| Compassion West Suffolk Community safety: To deliver Who’s in Charge programme to adults who are victims of violence by children. | £6,480 |
| Restore Women’s Aid West Suffolk Community safety: Domestic abuse support service for young people struggling with relationships including unhealthy boundaries and coercive controlling behaviours. | £15,000 |
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