More than £100,000 has been donated to community projects across East Yorkshire through E.ON’s Humber Gateway Offshore Wind Farm Community Support Fund.
The fund set up to support sustainable community projects in parishes which border the wind farm between Easington and Preston, will this year support 20 projects ranging from improvements to facilities at a football club to increasing the number of rural internet connections in the area.
As part of the funding process, an independent judging panel chaired by East Riding of Yorkshire Council’s Cabinet Member for Economy, Investment and Inequalities, Cllr Jane Evison, was asked to score each application, against a set of criteria: impact on community, sustainability, environmental benefit, value for money and need.
Sandra Stephens, Renewables Stakeholder Manager at E.ON, said: “Providing a helping hand to organisations that are looking to deliver projects that make a real difference to local people is the core principle of the Community Support Fund and something we’re incredibly proud of.
”We were amazed by the diversity and creativity of the applications received and our panel of judges found the task of selecting the projects to support extremely difficult. One application which particularly inspired us was from Ottringham Village Hall Management Committee, and we very much look forward to seeing how Ottringham Village Hall and all of the selected projects come together over the coming weeks and months.”
Ottringham Village Hall, a building used regularly by the local community, has received £7,000 to fund the internal refurbishment of the hall and to provide secure cycle storage in order to facilitate greater use of the facility.
Easington Parish was awarded funding across a number of different initiatives. Easington United Association Football Club was another recipient of funding from E.ON, securing £6,000 for improvements to its existing facilities, including the erection of floodlights, changing room repairs and drainage installation. According to the club, the improvements will provide a more sustainable and safe venue to increase participation and community engagement.