Decision details

The decision has been made to make Round Four awards of UKSPF funding to the following projects in South Holland District:
Lincolnshire Community Foundation – Youth Engagement Project (£9,537)
The project is to provide grant funding to organisations that can deliver preventative measures to help young people at risk of committing a criminal offence or becoming involved in anti-social behaviour, with a focus on reducing ASB in our area. The aim is to support 10 organisations and projects to assist with these preventative measures. This project will be delivered throughout the Partnership and in partnership with local policing services. It is set to leverage in an additional £107k of match funding.
South Holland District Council – Pride in Place Community Volunteer Scheme (£11,181)
The aim of this project is to increase the feeling of ‘pride’ within our local communities for the places people live, work and visit. A Trusted Community Volunteers Scheme, led by an appointed coordinator, will increase the number of volunteers, with a particular focus on the SELCP pride in place scheme, by involving local people in their local communities and also building a sense of purpose and pride in their local area. This will support the improvement of street cleanliness, the appearance of townscapes and the range and diversity of community initiatives.
South Holland District Council - Spring into Spalding (£6,000)
A one-day event to take place in Spalding town centre, with a focus on driving footfall to businesses. The event, as well as the activities and entertainment taking place, will be free for all to attend. This project is an expansion of the same event that was held in the year 2022, which was hugely successful and achieved a number of outcomes, including: increased footfall, increased visitor numbers, improved engagement numbers, increased affordability of events, improved perception of events, number of community-led arts, heritage and creative programmes.
Chain Bridge Forge - Growing Blacksmithing (£42,500)
This proposal is about giving better access to the Blacksmithing Craft at Chain Bridge Forge. This will be achieved by promoting Blacksmithing at the Forge and create a digital emulation that can be accessed through the Metaverse and/or taken to special events and schools. There will also be a series of open events at the forge to support a greater number of local people to access blacksmithing and traditional craft skills.
Spalding and District Civic Society - Spalding MARK-it Trail (£43,000)
The MARK-it Trail aims to increase awareness and appreciation of the town's heritage and celebrate Spalding’s market in its livestock heyday (also the annual hiring fair), along with the wider District of South Holland’s present-day importance to the nation’s food supply. The trail would consist of permanent high quality artworks in the town centre, sited in the same streets as those in which animals were traditionally sold. Within living memory there were sheep in Sheepmarket, cattle in New Road and so on. The funding will be used to commission the first phase of high quality art works for the trail.
Long Sutton Men's Shed - Youth Shed Phase II (£40,000)
This builds on the success of the previous, completed UKSPF-funded Youth Shed project, which has been significantly oversubscribed. Currently the Youth shed opens for 2 sessions per week at 4 hours each session. This funding will support the expansion of this to five a days a week. The member of staff employed under this fund will then support the Youth Shed in gaining match funding from other funding platforms to support the delivery and sustainability of the project going forward.
South Holland District Council - Open Markets, South Holland (£52,500)
There are currently no stalls for market traders in South Holland and the project aims to provide branded gazebos that ensure an attractive retail environment that would enable traders to grow their income and to attract new start businesses. The branded and uniform offer will improve the aesthetics for customers, increasing footfall to our town centres, therefore benefited other businesses and will be rolled out across the District, ensuring that areas beyond Spalding are able to access this attractive, revitalized retail environment and share in the benefit of this project, including all 5 markets across the South Holland District.
Bishop Grosseteste University - LORIC (£14,413)
This Programme will support businesses to better engage with data and new technology, as well as providing 1:1 support which compliments the Grants 4 Growth/Advice 4 Growth offer, with a particular focus on supporting local businesses to introduce new to market products.
University of Lincoln - Supporting the Expansion of SLFEZ (South Lincolnshire Food Enterprise Zone) (£87,750)
This will support the expansion of the SLFEZ, enabling the University to reach and engage with more agricultural, food and rural businesses. There will be a programme to promote and grow the SLFEZ and associated businesses, as well as a skills programme to support the sector to access the skills they need to expand.
Lincolnshire Community Foundation – Supporting Social Enterprise (£28,178) (Awarded in Round Two, Contracting under Round Four) – Looking to strengthen local enterprise ecosystems and grow the local social economy by increasing the number of charities and social enterprises operating in the District. This will include 1 to 1 advice, guidance, mentoring from a specialist Social Enterprise Advisor and grant funding from an Innovation and Ideas fund for these organisations (this to be provided as a match funding to the project).
It must be noted: These projects sit separate to the ringfenced funding available to village halls, parish councils and community spaces (administered by LCF), the second round of which is being announced simultaneously. These projects are also separate to the monies ringfenced for grants to businesses (Grants 4 Growth II), which are now being actively disbursed by the relevant service area within the Council.

As part of HMG’s Levelling Up Agenda and in line with the commitments made by South Holland District in the UKSPF Prospectus and Investment Plan, we have committed to invest in high-impact projects across three core themes:
-Communities and place - Supporting community groups and investment in community facilities; enhancing the cultural and heritage offer; widening the use of community buildings; initiatives to help support our town centres.
-Supporting local business - Helping local businesses invest for future growth; growing the food processing, horticulture and logistics sector; encouraging new businesses to establish; helping the local social and community enterprises to innovate and grow.
-People and skills - Developing skills and employment opportunities within the fresh food, food processing and logistics sectors; creating new training hubs; supporting local residents with skills and access to employment.
These allocations principally meet the objectives that we have committed to under the Communities and Place and Supporting Local Businesses Themes and with the projects passing a rigorous assessment process, we are confident that they can deliver the outcomes expected from the Programme quickly and substantively. This has been the basis of the decision.

These funds were allocated on a competitive basis, based on the third round of submitted EoIs and Full Applications to the UK Shared Prosperity and Rural Prosperity Fund. The alternative would be to not award the funding, which would bring severe reputational risk to the Council both with the public and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.