Rural England Prosperity Fund

The Rural England Prosperity Fund is currently closed to Expressions Of Interest but will open from 10am on Friday 9 May.

The Government has announced a top-up to the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, the Rural England Prosperity Fund (REPF). Horsham District has been allocated £261.477, which can be spent throughout 2025/26.

The Rural Fund recognises the specific challenges facing our rural areas, including:

Lower productivity rates
Poorer connectivity
Poorer access to key services

There are two investment priorities for the fund:

Supporting local business
Community and place

The Rural Fund provides capital funding to:

Small scale investments in micro and small enterprises, and community projects in rural areas
Farm business diversification (outside of agriculture diversification)

REPF cannot be used to fund farm machinery or to diversify within agriculture.

To find out more about the fund, read the REPF prospectus on the Government website.

Express an interest in the REPF grant programme

The fund will be open for Expressions of Interest from 10am on Friday 9 May to noon on Friday 13 June 2025. Eligible CAPITAL projects will be notified if they are successful within 8 weeks and then required to complete a full application for formal assessment.

You should not incur any expenditure prior to receiving your formal grant agreement. REVENUE projects will be deemed ineligible and will not be considered

To be eligible for a REPF grant, you must meet the following requirements:

Who – Constituted community groups and businesses based in Horsham District, registered with Companies House, Charities Commission or HMRC
Where – Benefitting the rural economy of Horsham District excluding Horsham Town (as does not qualify). To check which area is defined as Horsham Town, visit the Rural England Prosperity fund mapping tool and click on 'administrative geographies' in the table of contents, then 'other administrative boundaries' and then select 'Rural England Prosperity Fund' as a layer.
When – All successful project applicants must have completed their capital project and spent all of the grant by 31 December 2025, at the latest
Minimum Grant Values: £25,000
Maximum Grant Values: £75,000
Match funding requirement: Minimum 25% of Project Total

Priority will be given to those projects that fit into the Enterprising Horsham Priority Actions, which you can find in our Economic Prospectus.

For further information on applying for the programme, visit our Guidance page.

If you have any queries regarding the Rural Fund, please email ruralenglandprosperityfund@horsham.gov.uk.