Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what funding is available for communities that wish to become carbon neutral.

Community and local energy projects are an important element of carbon reduction and government continues to support communities who wish to become carbon neutral or reduce their carbon footprint.

At the end of May, the Rural Community Energy Fund reopened to support communities seeking to develop a wide range of low carbon activities. The £10m fund provides grants to communities for the feasibility studies into their ideas for action and where viable another grant to help develop the project to investment readiness.

The Rural Community Energy Fund will be delivered through the local energy hubs, created as part of the BEIS Local Energy Programme. The 5 hubs cover all the Local Enterprise Partnerships and the South West hub is managed by the West of England Combined Authority. The hubs provide wider commercial, technical and project management support to Local Authorities on their low carbon energy projects.