Community Buildings

Our Community Buildings theme aims to improve buildings at the heart of their communities, such as village halls, community centres and church halls.   

Examples of costs that we can fund include renovations of community rooms, refurbishments of toilet facilities and kitchens, replacement doors and windows, extensions to create additional space that will benefit community groups, replacement of damaged floors and roofs, and new central heating systems. 

Your organisation must be fully constituted, charitable or not-for-profit with no share capital. We do not accept applications from local authorities, councils, hospices, hospitals, day-care centres, activity centres, rehabilitation units, residential care facilities, allotments, nurseries, food banks and schools/colleges.   

Applications for projects in places of worship must show that they serve the wider community, similar to a village hall or community centre attracting significant wider weekly group use. Funding will not cover fabric repairs or repairs to church windows, spires, steeples, bell towers or any areas not publicly available as a community space. 

Priority is given to projects that demonstrate a wider community benefit and need. We expect your building to be used by many groups regularly each week, benefiting people of different ages and demographics.   

Please note: If you are applying for a project in a sporting clubhouse, you should apply under our Recreation theme.  

The project must be eligible for registration with the scheme’s regulator, and must meet the following criteria:   

• Application value must be between £10,000 and £75,000 

• Total project costs or its phases must not exceed £200,000 including VAT. Standalone elements of a wider project costing less than £200,000 are also excluded 

• The project site must be within five miles of a significant Biffa Operation or within 10 miles if this is an active Biffa Landfill Site (check the project postcode using the Postcode Checker below and save the address as you will need this to make an application) 

• The project must ALSO be within 10 miles of a licensed landfill site (click here to check landfill eligibility and save the address as you will need this to make an application) 

• A Third Party Contributor should be identified to fund 10% of the application value 

• The project must not cross over different themes 

• 75% of any shortfall funding must be secured if Biffa Award is not being asked to fully fund the project 

• Minimum of 104 days of published and full public access each year 

• If the organisation does not own the project site, a fully signed lease between the landowner and the applicant, with at least 10 years remaining must be in place. We cannot accept any other forms of agreement, including but not limited to, draft agreements, letters of intent, heads of terms, subleases or underleases.  

• If planning permission is required, it must have been granted before you submit an Expression of Interest  

Biffa Award is unable to fund retrospectively, so you should only apply for funding for work that will take place in the future. Additionally, any project funded by Biffa Award must be open and fully accessible once our element of work has completed. 

Please note: You cannot re-apply for funding on the same site of a previous Biffa Award grant within one year of receiving your final payment.  

We can only accept a maximum of two Full Applications per financial year from any one organisation, and only one application per organisation will be considered at any Board meeting. 

To find out more download our  Guidance Notes. Please note that these might have changed if you have applied for funding before.