Following its first applications round earlier this year, round 2 of the £2.6m Greater Manchester Green Spaces Fund is now open to applications, seeking community projects that will make a real difference to their local area.

The fund makes small and large grants available for community groups wanting to create new, accessible spaces or improve existing ones in their local area, particularly where there is currently poor local access to good quality green space.

Projects should improve publicly accessible spaces through physical improvements to make them better places for nature and people. These projects could take place in parks, community gardens, streets, schools, housing estates, canals, streams, rivers and existing nature reserves.

Examples of the type of projects it could support include:

• Improving existing or creating new accessible green space for people and/or wildlife
• Permanently greening streets
• Creating new permanent parklets or pocket parks
• Community gardening and food growing
• Turning paved over areas to green areas
• Cleaning up and restoring streams, rivers, canals and ponds

To make things easier for applicants, several Green Spaces Fund Advisors are on hand to help community groups apply. These advisors can:

• Support groups to apply for the Green Spaces Fund and other funding opportunities
• Ensure ideas generated by community groups are realistic and achievable
• Support groups to develop their skills and confidence in project delivery
• Develop the ongoing skills of community groups to ensure sites can be maintained and activities will continue long term

The Advisors cover the following areas:

• Stockport & Tameside: Katie Jones, from our City of Trees team, katie@cityoftrees.org.uk
• Manchester & Trafford: Kieron McGlasson, Sow the City, kieron@sowthecity.org
• Rochdale: Lydia Marshall, Groundwork, lydia.marshall@groundwork.org.uk
• Bolton & Bury: Emma Thompson, Lancashire Wildlife Trust, ethompson@lancswt.org.uk
• Oldham & Salford: Nina Agnew, RHS, ninaagnew@rhs.org.uk
• Wigan: Stephen Hodges, Groundwork, stephen.hodges@groundwork.org.uk

To find out more about the fund and apply, please visit the Green Spaces Fund website.

The Green Spaces Fund is part of the Greater Manchester Environment Fund (GMEF), which has been established to provide more sustained investment in projects which contribute to creating a cleaner, carbon neutral Greater Manchester and to attract private investment. The environment fund, managed by Lancashire Wildlife Trust (LWT) aims to target funding to projects which improve nature, waterways and green spaces.  For more information, please visit the website: www.gmenvfund.org.