SSE has opened the first round of the Partnership Fund for the Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm (BOWL), making GBP 600,000 available to support transformative community projects in both Highland and Moray in the first year.
The Beatrice Partnership Fund, worth a total of GBP 3 million over a five-year period, is now inviting applications from non-profit making organisations, community groups and charities from the east coast communities in Caithness and Sutherland, and the coastal communities in Moray.
Successful projects will have the potential to deliver transformational social, economic and environmental changes in the local area whilst supporting long term community development.
A further GBP 3 million will be available for the local communities in Caithness and Moray and an announcement on that fund is expected in spring 2017.
The GBP 6 million community investment fund is being provided by BOWL and is in addition to the GBP 28 million that BOWL is paying into the Crown Estate’s Coastal Community Fund as part of its seabed leasing agreement.
The 588MW, 84 turbine Beatrice offshore wind farm is due to be operational by 2019, with onshore construction work already underway.