Communities across central southern England have been urged to apply to SSEN's annual Resilient Communities Fund, which has an enhanced allocation of £1 million.

The fund aims to support communities to become more resilient in the face of storms, severe weather and prolonged power interruptions.

Following the storms which swept across central southern England earlier this year, bringing disruption to homes and businesses, SSEN has increased the funding pot; raising the total Resilient Communities Fund for 2022 to £1 million.

Now in its eighth year, SSEN's Resilient Communities Fund has been boosted in recognition of the difficulties some communities experienced in the face of the recent adverse weather and aims to assist in helping them build and strengthen their resilience.

From 30 March, applications are invited from communities for grants available from £1,000 up to £20,000. In exceptional cases, involving multi-year and multi-community applications, funding up to a maximum of £50,000 can be considered.

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The deadline for applications to the fund is 01 June 2022 and applicants are asked to consider the criteria for funding, which seeks to support projects falling under these two categories:

• Resilience for Emergency Events - To enhance community facilities, services and communication specifically to support the local response in the event of a significant emergency such as extended power loss.

• Vulnerability - To protect the welfare of vulnerable community members particularly during significant emergency events such as extended power loss, through enhancing their resilience and improving community participation and effectiveness.

The SSEN Resilient Communities Fund Panel, made up of organisations with expertise in community resilience planning will review applications and determine which projects should receive funding, with the successful applications announced in the autumn.

SSEN Distribution's Managing Director, Chris Burchell said: "The back-to-back named storms which swept across the UK this winter were the worst experienced by our central southern England teams in over 30 years and resulted in an exceptional level of damage to our electricity network.

"As our skilled engineers on the ground worked round the clock to repair that damage and restore power to our customers, we also witnessed the brilliant work of our communities and how people pulled together to support each other where power supplies had been affected. In recognition of this, SSEN has decided to increase this year's Resilient Communities fund to £1 million."

Chris continued: "Since its inception, SSEN's Resilient Communities fund has helped hundreds of communities and vulnerable community members, and we look forward to being able to supporting even more schemes this year through the increased funds available; building stronger communities for all of our customers living and working across central southern England."