Charities and community groups are to benefit from £2.3m from Scottish and Southern Energy Power Distribution (SSEPD). 

The electricity distributor has this week directly donated £1m to four UK charities and also created a £1.3m fund for community groups and not-for-profit organisations. 

An independent panel will decide which projects should be given a grant from the Resilient Communities Fund. Applications will open in 2015, when more details will be published. Funding will be available for projects to help communities prepare for emergency weather events, either through provision for vulnerable households, improvement in communications or enhancement of community facilities.  

This fund will be split between SSEPD’s Southern Electric Power Distribution network area in central southern England, which will benefit from £1m, and SSEPD’s Hydro Electric Power Distribution area in the north of Scotland, which will benefit from £300,000. Preferential treatment will be given to areas worst hit during last Christmas’ storms.

Director of Distribution, Stuart Hogarth, said: “I am looking forward to working with other organisations who share our aim of making communities more resilient during the kind of bad weather we had around last Christmas. The money we have donated directly to the four charities is in recognition of the tremendous work they do all year round.”

The four charities that have received donations totalling £1million are:

  • British Red Cross (£400,000) 
  • MacMillan (£200,000)
  • National Energy Action (£200,000)
  • Age UK (£200,000)

They will use the money to support services, focusing on helping vulnerable households, those affected by fuel poverty, those in more rural areas or those who need special assistance in preparing for an unexpected loss of power.

Last winter SSEPD’s customers experienced eight major storms in the company’s network areas in central southern England and north Scotland. The impact of adverse weather – rain, wind and flooding – meant that many customers were without power during the festive period.  To date £2.5m has been paid out in compensation to those customers.  However not all customers claimed compensation so SSEPD has agreed to give Ј2.3m to charities and good causes.