Brum Breathes Fund to provide £4m to help community groups clean up Birmingham’s air

On the second anniversary of Birmingham’s Clean Air Zone a round of funding is being made available which will provide just over £4m to support schemes and projects across the city to help improve air quality.

Single-member council wards will receive up to £20,000 per year and two-member wards up to £40,000 per year, for the next two years. All the funding is from revenues generated by the Clean Air Zone itself.

Constituted, un-constituted, and grassroots community groups can apply to the fund to support activities that will enable their community to benefit from measures that aim to promote the benefits of cleaner air such as promoting the benefits of cleaner air, supporting active travel and public transport use, or encouraging a greater shift towards zero emissions travel or infrastructure.  All applications to the Fund will also need the support of the local Councillor(s).

Ideas suggested by the council include cycle racks, school traffic exclusion plans, sustainable transport measures, parking restrictions and air quality monitors.

To date the Council has allocated just over £52m of net surplus revenues from the Clean Air Zone to projects such as a trial of hydrogen buses, upgrades to the University train station and improvements to stations on the Camp Hill line, a number of projects within the Cross-City Bus scheme, expansion of the Car Free School Streets programme, development of the next phase of the Birmingham Cycle Revolution, including the creation of the Brum Breathes Fund.