Town & Village Renewal Scheme for 2020

On Wednesday 27^th May, Mr Michael Ring TD, Minister for Rural and Community Development, announced details of a €15 million allocation for the Town & Village Renewal Scheme for 2020.

The Town & Village Renewal Scheme provides funding for projects that make our towns and villages more attractive and sustainable. The Scheme has previously invested in public-realm projects and the enhancement of town centre amenities, interventions to encourage town centre living and projects that support the economic development of our towns and villages. Applications under the Scheme are submitted to the Department of Rural & Community Development through the Local Authorities.  Applications can be submitted for towns/villages with a population less than 10,000.

This year the scheme has been adapted in response to COVID-19 as follows:

• A focus under the standard Town and Village Renewal Scheme on interventions that can respond to the new challenges associated with COVID-19 and support the economic and social recovery of our rural towns and villages.

• The introduction of a new strand of the Town & Village Renewal Scheme that will support accelerated interventions that can be delivered in the short-term to assist towns and villages to adapt to COVID-19. This will be delivered through two funding rounds.  This new Accelerated Measure will include a simplified application and approval process to enable smaller projects which are part of a response to COVID-19 to be approved and delivered quickly. The Measure will provide funding of up to €25,000 per project, increasing to €40,000 for higher impact projects.  Proposals should typically be for supplies or services of a capital nature or for short term works projects rather than the longer term interventions usually funded under the Town and Village Renewal Scheme.  The Local Authority can submit up to 5 projects in each of the 2 rounds of the scheme with the Department making the final decision of which projects will receive funding.  The closing dates for each funding round are 3^rd July 2020 and 14^th August 2020 with a maximum of 5 applications per round allowed to be submitted.

Details of the both elements of the Town & Village Renewal Scheme are attached for information:

Town & Village Scheme Outline – Accelerated Measure -PDF

Town & Village Scheme Outline – PDF 

EOI’s should be submitted for the first round of the accelerated measures by Thursday 18^th June 2020.  All other EOI’s should be submitted by Friday 17^th July 2020.

Any queries or EOI’s can be submitted to community@meathcoco.ie