Our Branch Out fund supports projects which deliver benefits for our natural environment, build resilience for wildlife and reconnect the public with the habitats around them.
As well as the main Branch Out fund awarding grants of up to £25,000, we also have funds aimed at Invasive Non-Native Species and Priority Habitats.
Our Branch Out fund supports projects which bring benefits to water, wildlife and communities. Through the fund, we enable local communities to take action which can make a difference to the natural environment within our operating areas, because a healthy environment is crucial to top quality drinking water.
The joy of our Branch Out, Invasive Non-Native Species and Priority Habitat funds is that every project is different. That variety is in evidence in some of the projects we’ve supported in the past year.
We’ve provided a £9,000 grant to help fund new gardens at the Locomotion railway museum in Shildon, encouraging the flora and fauna commonly found on railway embankments, planting new native hedgerows and habitats for hedgehogs and bats.
A £2,000 grant has helped enhance the Gosforth Nature Reserve - one of the oldest in the North East, founded in 1929. The support from the Branch Out fund helps increase biodiversity through wildflower planting and woodland habitat enhancements, as part of a project which also replaced a nesting platform for common terns.
The Wear Rivers Trust received two grant awards totalling £32,000, which will support a project tackling Invasive Non-Native Species along the River Wear, as well as a specific effort to manage and treat Giant Hogweed as part of a project called ‘Old Durham Beck Renewed’.
These projects, and others like them improve habitats and make our natural environment safer and more accessible.