GovWire

The Nature for Climate Peatland Grant Scheme (NCPGS) provides funding to restore peatlands in the uplands and lowlands of England. It is a competitive grant scheme that will run until 2025.

The scheme is open to:

• environmental groups
• local authorities
• charities
• public bodies
• individual landowners
• organisations

Application criteria

Natural England is looking for landscape scale applications that work to restore the whole hydrological unit of a peatland. This is likely to involve several sites and landowners, so applications from partnerships or substantial land holdings are encouraged.

Applicants must have the authority to carry out the activities in their proposal. For example, if you do not own the land, you need permission from the landowner as part of your application.

You cannot apply for funding for activities that have already been funded through other sources.

Objectives of the scheme

You must be able to show in your application how your proposal will deliver the schemes objectives.

The objectives are to:

• reduce emissions from peat by 5.7 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents cumulatively by 2050
• establish the process of restoring 35,000 hectares of degraded peat in England by March 2025
• provide wider benefits such as improved ecosystems and biodiversity, better water quality, natural flood management, protection of historic environment features, and connecting people with nature

Restoration Grant

Restoration Grants fund landscape scale restoration work on degraded peatlands in England. You can apply for the third round of grants from 20 March to 26 May 2023.

You can normally apply for up to 75% of the total project costs. At least 25% of the total project costs must be covered by funding from non-exchequer sources (not from the UK government or HM Treasury).

In exceptional cases, you can apply for up to 85% of the cost. A project is an exceptional case if its both:

• offering unique and significant environmental benefits that commonly-used restoration techniques could not achieve for example, innovative techniques to reintroduce rare species
• from organisations or partnerships with constraints over their ability to secure other funding

In these cases, grant applicants must cover at least 15% of the project funding from non-exchequer sources. Such projects still need to score highly against all assessment criteria. If you want to apply for over 75% funding, you should submit a clarification via Atamis (when applying) to ask for confirmation of eligibility.

Discovery Grant

You cannot apply for Discovery Grants anymore.

You can still apply for a Restoration Grant if youve received a Discovery Grant in the past.

Paludiculture Exploration Fund

The Nature for Climate Peatland Grant Scheme also includes the Paludiculture Exploration Fund. This fund supports businesses, landowners and others with an interest in exploring paludiculture. Farming on wetter peat has the potential to mitigate the further loss of greenhouse gases and carbon as outlined in the England Peat Action Plan.

The Paludiculture Exploration Fund is now closed. You can find out about the grants supported and join in or explore the options and developments in paludiculture and wetter farming at www.paludiculture.org.uk.

Other land management schemes

Having a NCPGS grant will not affect your eligibility for current and future land management schemes like the Countryside Stewardship and Landscape Recovery schemes.

You cannot receive payments for the same work through both the NCPGS and land management payments.

How to apply

You can now apply for a Restoration Grant in round 3. The deadline for applications is 26 May 2023.

To apply you must register and submit your documentation through Atamis. You can also read updated guidance about round 3 of the scheme on Atamis.

You must use the new application templates for this round of grants.

You can watch recordings of pre-application webinars from 1 and 9 March 2023:

Nature for Climate Peatland Grant Scheme Restoration Grants Round 3: Pre-Engagement Webinar 1 March 2023

Nature for Climate Peatland Grant Scheme Restoration Grants Round 3: Pre-Engagement Webinar 9 March 2023

If you are not the landowner, it is essential that you liaise with them as part of your application.

If you already have a funded project in the Nature for Climate Peatland Grant Scheme you should continue to liaise about this current project with Natural Englands peatland team through as usual.

Ask a question

You can submit any queries about your application through the Atamis platform.

Outcome of your application

Natural England will evaluate and score all proposals after the closing date. They expect to notify applicants of awards by late August 2023.

Contact Natural England

If you have questions about the Nature for Climate Peatland Grant Scheme, you can contact Natural England at peatlandscheme@naturalengland.org.uk.