At Greater Anglia, we are committed to developing and improving the railway in line with community aspirations and in ways in which help address social needs across our network.
In pursuit of that aim, this year, for the first time, we are launching our Customer and Community Improvement Fund. This scheme is aimed at supporting initiatives which deliver community benefits and enhance rail’s positive role in society across the region. Crucially, they will be ideas proposed by organisations or bodies within our local communities, such as community rail partnerships, station adopters, local authorities, community groups, charities, or other stakeholders from around our region.
We are especially interested in projects which meet one or more of the following aims - which are to either:
- benefit rail customers
- increase rail travel
- trial or promote rail with individuals or groups who are not currently rail users
- encourage carbon reduction and/or biodiversity
- promote inclusion and diversity
- make rail travel more accessible
- support integrated transport links
- improve stations or station facilities in ways that complement their role as gateways to the local communities
- connect communities, people, and places
- provide educational programmes that support careers in rail or increase awareness and experience of public transport and rail safety
- address local social needs
- enhance health and wellbeing
- support economic growth
Overall, we will be investing £350,000 in 2024-25 and the intention is to support a number of initiatives across the Greater Anglia network.
How will the scheme work?
We will be seeking submissions proposing projects or initiatives from across our network that will meet one or more of the aspirations outlined above and can be delivered in the timescales outlined. We will review all the ideas put forward and then confirm those projects which have been approved.
The type of initiatives which might be supported include:
- Small scale schemes to provide new, upgraded, or restored station facilities
- Signage and wayfinding schemes
- Better information provision
- Educational, art, history, or heritage projects
- Biodiversity or carbon reduction programmes
- Better integrated transport facilities (or walking or cycling routes)
- Improving inclusion and diversity for those who work within or use the rail network
- Promoting rail amongst under-represented groups
- Research projects that might support future rail improvements
- Other proposals which build or strengthen links between communities and their railways
There could be other ideas or proposals, as long as they are consistent with the aims previously outlined or are in line with those options already highlighted, but they must have a clear linkage to rail and a clear benefit for the local community and/or rail customers.
Bid eligibility and criteria
To be considered, proposals must fulfil the following criteria:
- They must be practical and fully deliverable, with a latest deadline for project completion of 31 March 2025.
- They must relate to rail in some way and help enhance rail’s role in the community.
- They should have lasting benefits for railways and the community.
- However, they must not create unsustainable cost liabilities for the rail industry.
- They should be schemes which are not part of the railway’s normal commercial activities or which would be implemented anyway in the absence of this fund.
- They must not duplicate or fund existing projects.
- They must not provide a commercial benefit for the organisation or group putting it forward.
- They should enhance links between the railway and local communities, to the benefit of all involved, and not bring either into disrepute.
- They cannot be used to support organisational overheads, only the specific project put forward.
- They must relate to the Greater Anglia network area.
- They can have matched funding, as long as that funding is consistent with the other timescales which apply to this fund.
- Bids must be submitted online using the form provided.
There is no set or preferred value for the amount of funding being requested. However, the maximum value of an application that would be considered would be £50,000, noting that the aim is to try and have a spread of schemes across the Greater Anglia network and that the higher the bid, the greater the scale of the benefits that would be sought.
Proposals must consider in detail all aspects of deliverability of the scheme, including all those parties who would play a role in its implementation, as only those initiatives which can be fully delivered and completed by 31 March 2025 will be considered.
Bids must be submitted online by 23.59 on Friday 13 September.