The Catchment Regeneration Fund, part of the company’s improvement programme to meet its environmental obligations, will support partnership projects using “nature-based solutions” to tackle challenges including pollution and low river flows.
These could include floodplain reconnection, river restoration, run-off attenuation, soil and land use improvements and wetland creation.
Grants will be available to landowners and farmers, charities, environmental groups, local councils, academic institutions and community organisations — anyone ready to co-fund and deliver projects that “bring environmental benefits to life”.
The fund focuses on 11 target catchments across Norfolk, parts of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, including North West Norfolk Rivers, North Norfolk, Wensum, Bure, Wissey, Yare, Little Ouse and Thet, Waveney, Lark, Cam Lower, and Cam Rhee and Granta.
Anglian Water has launched an £11m fund to improve nature and water quality across 11 river catchments in Norfolk, parts of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire (Image: Anglian Water)
These are some of East Anglia’s most important and vulnerable water environments – and Anglian Water says its fund aims to “boost biodiversity, improve water quality, and enhance recreation and education opportunities in these areas”.
Becky Carter, rural regeneration programme lead for Anglian Water’s environmental team, said: “We know the best ideas often come from local people who understand their land and water best.
“This fund is about empowering communities and partners to create projects that make a lasting difference — for rivers, for wildlife and for people.”
A treatment wetland at Ingoldisthrope in Norfolk (Image: Anglian Water)
The Catchment Regeneration Fund opens for applications on January 28, with a two-month rolling application window until 2030.
To qualify, projects must help reduce nutrient diffuse pollution or address low river flows.
Applicants will need to contribute at least one-to-one match funding, “in cash or in-kind support”. The minimum grant is £20,000 but there is no upper limit, with projects of all sizes being assessed on merit by a funding panel.
An online launch event will be held on January 28 to explain how to apply, answer questions and share examples of the kind of projects which the fund could support.
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The fund is part of the wider A-WINEP (Advanced Water Industry National Environment Programme) – part of a regulatory framework which all water companies operating in England must comply with in order to meet their environmental obligations.
To register for the launch webinar or receive updates, contact AWINEPgrantfund@anglianwater.co.uk or visit www.anglianwater.co.uk/environment/enhancing-the-environment/advanced-winep-a-winep
A new section of bypass channel constructed on the River Gadder, a tributary of the River Wissey (Image: Anglian Water)