Applications invited for grants to boost rural businesses and communities

3 June 2025

Somerset Council is inviting applications for the latest Rural Development Prosperity Fund, which runs until December 2025 with grants allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

Applicants will need 50 per cent match funding for their project, with the grant paid retrospectively.

The aim of the fund is to help improve productivity and strengthen the rural economy and rural communities but supporting local businesses and communities.

The Rural Fund provides capital funding to:

• Support new and existing rural businesses to develop new products and facilities that will be of wider benefit to the local economy. This includes farm businesses looking to diversify income streams, but not into food and drink.
• Support new and improved community infrastructure, providing essential community services and assets for local people and businesses to benefit the local economy. Projects must be in a rural area.

For the purpose of this fund, Defra’s classification of rural areas is towns, villages and hamlets with populations below 10,000 and the wider countryside market or ‘hub towns’ with populations of up to 30,000 that serve their surrounding rural areas as centres of employment and in providing services (this will exclude funding of projects in Taunton, Bridgwater and Yeovil).

Investments must demonstrate value for money and also, how they contribute to net zero and nature recovery objectives.

A full guidance document can be found here.