26/04/21

Adrian Oates, Head of Fundraising and Marketing

Nene Park Trust is a charity and because of this there are a myriad of funding organisations that we can approach to secure grants for specific activities. Over the past 5 years in particular, grant funding has become an important way of raising money for projects or purchases, and is an important element of our current strategic commitment of “doing more with more” - finding extra funding so we can do more to make Nene Park a special place. And this is where rubbish comes in!

Rubbish might not be the first thing you think of in relation to funding, but actually it has played a major role in providing funds for many of the exciting additions to the Park in recent years. Specifically, it is the practice of storing rubbish in landfill sites that helps to generate income for Nene Park and other greenspaces. Since 1996, a landfill tax has been levied on landfill operators in the UK. However, operators are able to reduce the amount of tax they pay by making payments to the Landfill Communities Fund which then redistributes the money to selected community or environmental projects situated close to qualifying landfill sites. Parks and greenspaces across the country are major recipients of grants through the Landfill Communities Fund, with over £1 billion spent on almost 50,000 projects over the past 25 years.

So the next time you visit our wonderful viewing platforms overlooking Heron Meadow, watch the sand martin bank on Lynch Lake or enjoy the wildflower margins all across the Park, it is all there thanks to rubbish and the Mick George Community Fund. If you pass the ‘Visions of Nature’ sculpture near Goldie Meadow, or use the accessible tarmac paths leading to some of our picnic benches, then that’s all thanks to leftovers and the FCC Communities Foundation. Did you know about our new play area - Fox Play – opening this Summer? Thanks to your black-bins it has been part-funded by both FCC and Viridor Credits. Even our new electric boat “Wyndham” is here partly thanks to garbage –contributions from the Augean Community Fund went towards the purchase cost!

Of course, we can’t rely on this fantastic source of funding forever and with the amount of rubbish going to Landfill dropping dramatically in recent years – which environmentally speaking is of course a good thing – the amount available for funding to greenspaces has also dropped and will soon be no more. But for now, our heartfelt thanks goes out to all the Landfill Operators who have provided grants to Nene Park through the Landfill Communities Fund. There is only one other source of funding that has contributed more money to Nene Park…but I will save that for another blog…