Grants totalling hundreds of millions of pounds to support heritage projects are being made available to UK good causes.
The National Lottery Heritage Fund has begun accepting applications to its flagship annual funding programme, which offers grants of up to £5m to support heritage schemes.
The programme, which runs until April 2022, typically hands out between £200m and £300m a year, depending on lottery receipts.
The funder said the move marked a return to its core business, but not to business as usual.
It said the coronavirus pandemic meant it had revised its approach to what it will fund.
It said this year’s scheme had introduced a new priority to support projects that delivered at least one of the following outcomes: boosting local economies; improving people’s wellbeing; making local areas better places to live, work and visit; developing skills; and improving the resilience of funded organisations.
All projects must also have an inclusion outcome that would enable a wider range of people to be involved in heritage.
They must also be able to demonstrate that they are environmentally responsible.
The funder said it was offering grants in three strands: £3,000 to £10,000, £10,000 to £250,000, and £250,000 to £5m.
It is open to applications from a broad range of heritage projects and activities including industrial heritage and sites, castles and historic places of worship, public parks and natural landscapes.
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis rather than there being hard deadlines.
Ros Kerslake, chief executive of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, said: “During 2020 we focused on supporting heritage across the UK to adapt and respond to the immediate impact of the Covid-19 crisis.
“By the end of this financial year we will have supported more than 1,500 organisations across the heritage sector with over £500m of National Lottery and government funding.
“Our focus now is to support the heritage sector to strengthen its recovery and to build back for positive change – reopening applications for heritage projects is key to the success of this.”
For more information and to apply, click here.