Transforming Transport grant guidance notes

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Cairngorms 2030: Trans­form­ing Trans­port grant guid­ance notes

Cairngorms 2030 Trans­form­ing Trans­port grants are avail­able to fund pro­jects that pro­mote improved travel choice with­in and between com­munit­ies in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. We are look­ing to sup­port pro­jects that pro­mote travel choice redu­cing car depend­ency for the whole or part of a journey.

What is Cairngorms 2030?

Cairngorms 2030 is an ambi­tious pro­gramme to con­nect people and nature inspired by the Gael­ic word dùthchas – mean­ing the deep-rooted con­nec­tion between people and nature – and places the power for change in the hands of the Nation­al Park’s com­munit­ies. Cairngorms 2030 is part fun­ded by The Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund through their ​‘Her­it­age Hori­zons’ pro­gramme and aims to deliv­er change by work­ing with com­munit­ies through­out the Nation­al Park. Through 20 long-term pro­jects, Cairngorms 2030 will bring about trans­form­a­tion­al change in the Cairngorms, bene­fit­ting people’s health and well­being, deliv­er­ing on cli­mate change and enhan­cing nature across the Nation­al Park. The pro­gramme is on a lar­ger scale than any­thing pre­vi­ously attemp­ted in the UK and aims to inspire rur­al and urb­an com­munit­ies through­out Scot­land and bey­ond to take action and make a dif­fer­ence. Find out more here: Cairngorms 2030 — Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

What is the Trans­form­ing Trans­port project?

The Trans­form­ing Trans­port theme has been defined as: trans­form­ing the way people move around the Nation­al Park to reduce emis­sions, pro­tect our nat­ur­al her­it­age and improve health. This will be delivered through increased cycle and act­ive travel pro­vi­sion, pub­lic travel ini­ti­at­ives and activ­it­ies to change travel behaviours

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What does act­ive or pub­lic trans­port mean?

‘Act­ive trans­port’ refers to travel that involves walk­ing, cyc­ling, using a wheel­chair or oth­er non-motor­ised trans­port like skate­boards and scoot­ers. ​‘Pub­lic trans­port’ is for jour­neys made using buses and or rail­ways. We are look­ing for pro­jects that sup­port travel options and choices with­in the Nation­al Park.

Must my pro­ject be loc­ated in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park?

All pro­jects must pre­dom­in­antly bene­fit jour­neys between or with­in the Nation­al Park. Whilst we do want to encour­age act­ive and pub­lic trans­port choices for those trav­el­ling to and from the Nation­al Park, this fund only sup­ports pro­jects that apply to loc­a­tions with­in the Nation­al Park boundary.

What will it fund?

The min­im­um grant amount is £1,000 with a max­im­um of £25,000 to fund pro­jects that will impact how people travel around the Nation­al Park. Indi­vidu­al pro­jects should be of a scale and level of ambi­tion to have a sig­ni­fic­ant impact and achieve long-term, trans­form­a­tion­al change to travel choice. All fund­ing requests should include the total costs includ­ing non-recov­er­able VAT. Applic­ants will be required to sub­mit a pro­ject budget set­ting out all oth­er sources of fund­ing for their pro­ject and the cash grant required to allow their pro­ject to pro­ceed. Grants can be awar­ded for 100% of the total cost, though this may vary accord­ing to the indi­vidu­al pro­ject, the rel­ev­ant pro­ject officer can offer fur­ther advice. Grants can only be used for new work, not for work already star­ted before being awar­ded the grant. Applic­ants may be asked to demon­strate value for money where selec­tion of sup­pli­ers or con­tract­ors uses an open and trans­par­ent pro­cess of gath­er­ing estim­ates and quo­ta­tions such as the organisation’s own pro­cure­ment pro­cess, depend­ing on the value of the grant. Advice can be provided on this.

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How much is the fund worth?

The Trans­form­ing Trans­port grant pro­gramme has a fund of £170,000 to be dis­trib­uted between March 2025 and March 2026. Fund­ing requests should be the min­im­um amount required to allow your pro­ject to pro­ceed and must include non-recov­er­able VAT. Grants can be used to fund up to 100% of eli­gible pro­ject costs depend­ing on the nature of the pro­ject. For pro­jects that do not meet the require­ments of this pro­gramme, we have anoth­er grant avail­able advice can be provided on a suit­able alternative.

Applic­a­tion criteria

Applic­a­tions will be assessed against three out­comes, and must meet at least one of these:

Out­come 1: Pub­lic trans­port is more access­ible and bet­ter promoted.

Out­come 2: Enhanced act­ive travel facil­it­ies improv­ing the qual­ity of user exper­i­ence and enabling changes to travel choice.

Out­come 3: People are sup­por­ted to change their travel beha­viour to cyc­ling, walk­ing and or oth­er non-motor­ised trans­port like skate­boards and scooters.

All suc­cess­ful grant applic­ants will be required to sub­mit reg­u­lar pro­gress reports to the Park Author­ity out­lining pro­gress with agreed out­puts and updates on eli­gible expendit­ure. The applic­ant will also be required to report on the impact of their pro­ject and how it con­trib­utes to the out­comes of Cairngorms 2030. Fre­quency of report­ing will be agreed in advance of accept­ing the grant offer through dis­cus­sion with the rel­ev­ant Nation­al Park Pro­ject Officer who will sup­ply fur­ther inform­a­tion on what data will be required as this will vary accord­ing to the pro­ject. The applic­ant will be required to acknow­ledge that the pro­ject has been fun­ded by Cairngorms 2030 and The Nation­al Her­it­age Lot­tery Fund on all pub­li­city and pro­mo­tion­al materials.

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What are the key dates?

Sub­mit an Expres­sion of Interest from 10 Feb­ru­ary 2025. Applic­a­tions will be invited and should be sub­mit­ted by the dead­line agreed with the trans­port team officer. The fund will remain open with reg­u­lar fund­ing round decision-mak­ing until the end of March 2026, with pro­jects to be com­pleted by Decem­ber 2026.

When will fund­ing be received if our applic­a­tion is successful?

All applic­ants will com­plete an Expres­sion of Interest (EOI) which will con­firm your gen­er­al pro­pos­al in a short state­ment with out­line details of your pro­ject. For grants up to £10,000 the EOI will be reviewed with­in two weeks of sub­mis­sion, and you will be invited to a sup­port meet­ing to dis­cuss before being sent a link to com­plete a full application.

Applic­a­tions under £10,000 will be scored inde­pend­ently by an officer and recom­men­ded to an intern­al assess­ment pan­el with a min­im­um of three people includ­ing a rep­res­ent­at­ive of the trans­port team, Head of Cairngorms 2030 and Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel. Applic­a­tions will be determ­ined using scores to determ­ine the out­come of the award sub­ject to any conditions.

Applic­a­tions over £10,000 will be scored and pro­posed to an addi­tion­al decision- mak­ing board of part­ners includ­ing mem­bers of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Exec­ut­ive team with oth­er rep­res­ent­at­ives to widen par­ti­cip­a­tion in decision mak­ing. All decisions will be final and can­not be appealed.

For applic­a­tions over £10,000 a series of quarterly sub­mis­sion dead­lines and fund­ing round clos­ing dates will be pub­lished as above for lar­ger grant requests between £10,001 and £25,000.

All applic­ants should com­plete the EOI and then take part in a sup­port meet­ing one to one with a pro­ject officer to explore wheth­er the pro­pos­al meets the aims and aspir­a­tions of the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme. Applic­ants who pass the EOI stage will

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then be invited to com­plete a full applic­a­tion with more detailed inform­a­tion about the applicant’s eli­gib­il­ity and the pro­posed project’s outcomes.

Decisions to fund pro­jects will be based on the avail­ab­il­ity of fund­ing, how well the pro­ject matches the Fund pri­or­it­ies and its con­tri­bu­tion to outcomes.

Ready to apply

You can fill out the Expres­sion of Interest form here: NEW EOI forms.url

How to con­tact the fund

Transport@​cairngorms.​co.​uk