Today in Fegg Hayes, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Environment and Enforcement, Councillor Amjid Wazir launched a new initiative to make our city cleaner and greener.

Cllr Amjid Wazir said: “We are delighted to launch the Big Green Fund today. We promised our residents that we would do everything we could to tidy up our city, and today we are delivering on that promise.

“Just a couple of weeks ago, we announced that we would be recruiting more staff to the Environmental Crime Unit to clear the backlog of fly-tipping in the city and make sure we are issuing fines to the perpetrators. Today we are going further and trying to restore community pride to our neighbourhoods.”

Cllr David Williams, Cabinet Member for Communities, Education and Safety, said: “The Big Green Fund will be invaluable in restoring pride to our communities. Whilst on the campaign trail, time and time again people told us that they felt no one took pride in their neighbourhoods any more. We have a lot of work to do to restore that pride, but the Big Green Fund is a great start. I would encourage people all across our city to apply for the funding to make our city an even better place to live.”

The “Big Green Fund” will provide six grants of up to £15,000 across our city. The grants will aim to encourage communities to take pride in their areas and make them better, more vibrant places to live. Some examples of projects which could be funded through the Big Green Fund include:

• Tidying up an unadopted alleyway
• Introducing a community garden
• Creating a wildflower meadow

Applications open today and close on July 23rd at midnight. The link to apply is here.