Lorg Overhead Line & New Substations Fund

About this fund

The Lorg Overhead Line and New Substations Community Benefit Fund is provided by SP Energy Networks (SPEN), linked to the development of 17.5km of overhead power lines and two new substations. You can read more about SPEN’s transmission project here.

This fund supports projects located within or directly benefiting the Carsphairn community council area in Dumfries and Galloway.

The total amount of Community Benefit calculated for this fund is £4,560,000, with £371,000 available in this round.

Any unspent funds from this round will be rolled forward into the future rounds of funding that are planned. The next round is planned to open in late January 2027. Please check back for closing dates.

This is the Local Grants scheme which makes grants of between £20,001 and £500,000.  However, because of the sum available in this round, the maximum grant size in this round is £371,000. Multi-year awards of up to two years are available.  

If you want to apply for a grant of £1,000 to £20,000, you can access the Grassroots Grants scheme administered by LocalGiving here. 

Purpose of this fund

The fund supports projects located within or directly benefiting people in Carsphairn, as geographically defined by the community council boundary.

The Community Benefit Fund will support local communities to deliver social, environmental and economic benefits by funding projects aligned with the following themes and local priorities:

• Strengthening financial resilience and educational inclusion

  Local priority: Improving access to local services and learning opportunities, and support community reuse of the primary school as an education asset.

• Employability support and skills development

  Local priority: Supporting small business start-ups and enterprise development, supporting jobs in community woodland management and paid development officer roles

• Social and digital inclusion, health and wellbeing, and active lifestyles:

  Local priority: Improving access to healthcare outreach, social spaces and recreation, and address poor broadband and mobile connectivity

• Improving community facilities, spaces and buildings

  Local priority: Maintain community buildings such as Lagwyne Hall and the Heritage Centre, with paid support to manage them

• Enhancing green spaces and access to the natural environment

  Local priority: Improving paths and access to forestry, heritage sites and green spaces and project Carsphairn’s biodiversity and landscape

• Sustainable and inclusive transport

  Local priority: Improving bus and community transport links, calm traffic in the village and enable safer walking and cycling to local services. 

Additional criteria

The fund can support 100% of eligible project costs. All costs, other than staffing costs, will require three quotes to be submitted with your application. A wide range of costs can be supported, but please note the following:

• Projects must be ready to start: costs confirmed, plans and designs finalised, permissions in place and be able to start within six months of a grant offer.
• Staffing and volunteer where these are attributable, proportionate and appropriately apportioned, and directly relate to community benefit
• Core costs, such as rent, utility bills, IT and HR support, can be pro-rated to project delivery time but cannot be standalone applications.

If you are not sure about whether your project is eligible for support, please contact Foundation Scotland for advice. 

Who can apply?

Your project must provide benefit  in the Carsphairn community council area, and your group/organisation must meet these standard eligibility criteria.  

Please make sure you read the eligibility criteria before applying.

In addition to these standard criteria, this fund can support further education colleges and universities, where they are applying for an eligible community benefit project and not acting as a statutory body. Local authorities can be named partners, but not applicants.

What can’t be funded?

Information on what the fund cannot support is provided in our What we can't fund page.  

In addition, this specific fund is unable to support:

• VAT your organisation can claim back  
• Your group's normal running costs, if they are not part of the project
• Research projects and studies
• Feasibility studies
• Legal representation or reviews
• One-off celebratory or seasonal events (summer fetes, fireworks displays, Christmas light switch-ons etc.) where there is no impact beyond the event
• Planning costs or other statutory costs
• Payments to SP Energy Networks , including DNO connection costs

How are decisions made?

SP Energy Networks (SPEN) has established a panel that will make decisions on awards for all community benefit funds provided by SPEN in Dumfries and Galloway and the Borders. Its purpose is to represent local views, define area priorities, and make independent decisions on grant awards.  

Foundation Scotland assesses each application. The community panel then considers your application against the Fund’s themes and locally identified priorities; how well it will be managed and delivered; whether it is good value for money, and what difference it will make.

If your application is unsuccessful, we will tell you why. You usually can apply to the Fund again – we will tell you if you cannot.