The Welsh assembly's Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing, Jane Davidson, has announced £2m of funding over two years for communities across Wales to improve their environment.

Litter, dog fouling, fly tipping, graffiti and other blights on their local environment will be tackled by 55 community projects across Wales.

"We made a commitment in the One Wales document to support local authorities and community voluntary groups to improve the quality of their local environment," the Minister said.

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"This funding initiative is the first step towards empowering local people to take action where they see fit. Our local environment is key to our quality of life and can significantly improve people's health and well-being."

Local Authorities, voluntary groups, Community Safety and Community First Partnerships were invited to bid for the money last year. The successful projects range from am initiative to increase the understanding of good design in achieving a quality environment to a project to reduce the use of plastic bags.

Seven of the projects are for the whole of Wales, including five by Keep Wales Tidy to help tidy up communities and one by Arriva Trains Wales for 'headcam' equipment for Police Community Support Officers to report and deter littering and graffiti.

A total of 63 bids were received for this funding and 55 were successful.

£999,093 will be allocated in 2007/08 and £1,047,923 in 2008 for the projects, which are mixture of one and two-year projects.

(GK/JM)