Grey to Green City Centre Fund

Making the city centre greener

Our Bolder Vision for Belfast identifies the importance of transforming critical parts of Belfast to create a safer, greener and more accessible city. Recently we carried out an expression of interest to gauge interest from Belfast businesses, social enterprises, charities and schools in a fund to support green projects in the city centre.

Green project proposals

We invited project proposals for the city centre that will introduce trees, plants, vegetation and flowers and encourage biodiversity.

Grey to Green fund objectives

The fund will make Belfast city centre more attractive with structures allowing vegetation to spread over building facades or exterior walls, or introducing trees, plants, vegetation and flowers to vacant and derelict city centre sites.

The fund objectives include:

• introducing sustainable vegetation to city centre vacant sites, hoarding or underutilised space
• exploring the potential to use structures to grow vegetation vertically on prominent city centre buildings
• introducing native species to the city centre
• introducing wildlife using bug hotels

Project completion

Projects must be completed by 31 March 2023.

Project maintenance

If a project is awarded a grant, the applicant will be responsible for regular maintenance of the greening infrastructure and ongoing capital costs after the project is complete.

Eligible organisations

We invited proposals from Belfast-based small to medium sized enterprises, social enterprises, charities, community groups and schools for projects which will make the city centre greener.

This included using vacant or derelict sites temporarily, introducing vertical planting on building walls and structures and other large scale ideas to plant vegetation and encourage biodiversity in the city centre.

Criteria for Grey to Green projects

We asked applicants to provide details on where projects will be located, the benefits the proposed project will achieve and how the project will align with these criteria:

• City centre location: greening projects should be located within the city centre and the applicant must have written permission from the landowner to use the proposed site.
• Help combat pollution: applicants should outline how their greening project would help combat pollution, such as using plants like ivy.
• Sustainable: greening should be done in a sustainable manner, with a view to how the project will be maintained in the future.
• Pollinators and native species: applicants should consider how pollinators and native species can be introduced to their projects.
• Introduction of wildlife: the integration of insect and bug hotels in projects is encouraged.
• Visible to the public: projects must be visible to the public. If a proposal includes a rooftop garden, this space must be accessible to the public.

Closing date for expression of interest

The closing date for returning an expression of interest was 4pm on Monday 12 December 2022.

Grey to Green fund next stages

Depending on the value of proposals, we anticipate the fund will support the development of greening in up to 10 city centre locations. We will award grants to projects that most closely align to the scheme’s criteria and objectives.