Community and Environment Fund (CEF) and Business and Local Economy Fund (BLEF)
High Speed Two (HS2) is a new high speed railway linking up London, the Midlands, the North and Scotland serving over 25 stations, including eight of Britain's 10 largest cities and connecting around 30 million people. For Phase One, the High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Act received Royal Assent in early 2017 a
- Funding
- See official notice
- Deadline
- April 1, 2035
- Status
- OPEN
- Category
- Small Business & Startups
- Opens
- March 9, 2017
- Directory link check
- October 24, 2026
About this opportunity
High Speed Two (HS2) is a new high speed railway linking up London, the Midlands, the North and Scotland serving over 25 stations, including eight of Britain's 10 largest cities and connecting around 30 million people. For Phase One, the High Speed Rail (London – West Midlands) Act received Royal Assent in early 2017 and the Phase 2a: High Speed Rail (West Midlands to Crewe) Act received Royal Assent in February 2021. Later stages of Phase Two will extend the route to Manchester, Leeds and beyond but are subject to future Parliamentary approval. In October 2014, Government announced a funding programme to offset the disruption of Phase One of HS2 on local communities and economies – the Community and Environment Fund (CEF) and the Business and Local Economy Fund (BLEF). A combined total of £45 million has now been made available for this fund. Of this figure, £40m is allocated for areas disrupted by the construction of Phase One and £5m is allocated for areas disrupted by Phase 2a. The Phase One Funds were launched at Royal Assent in February 2017 and opened for applications on 8th March 2017. The Phase 2a Funds were launched at Royal Assent in February 2021 and will open for applications on the 1st April 2021.
Eligibility recorded
To be eligible to apply to CEF and BLEF your organisation must be: Formally established for public benefit and is not for profit. For non-statutory bodies, you must have a governing document (e.g. constitution or memorandum and articles of association) which includes appropriate statements on members, Directors or Trustees not benefiting financially from the organisation or its dissolution, a minimum of 3 unrelated people on the committee, this will be unrelated trustees for charities and unrelated directors for companies limited by guarantee, and have your own bank account (which requires 2 signatories). CEF is primarily targeted at the voluntary/community sector including registered charities, constituted community groups, Community Interest Companies (CICs), social enterprises and community businesses. BLEF is primarily targeted at organisations which have formal objectives that support the development of local business/tourism.
Recorded geography: United Kingdom
Directory verification note
Automatically synchronized from UK Find a Grant. Source identifier: community-and-environment-fund-cef-and-business-and-local-economy-fund-blef-1. Confirm details on the official page.