Dogger Bank Wind Farm to share up to £1,000 per project

The 2026 round of the Dogger Bank Operator Fund will provide up to £1,000 per project for groups covering South Tyneside, Redcar and Cleveland, and the East Riding of Yorkshire.

A total of £80,000 is available, funded annually by the Dogger Bank Wind Farm.

Kay Doragh, community investment manager, said: “We are incredibly proud to continue our support for the local projects that make these regions thrive.

“From helping young people find their first career steps to installing solar lighting for village safety, these grants make a tangible difference.

“We look forward to seeing the innovative projects the 2026 applications will bring to the table.”

The grants form part of Dogger Bank’s wider £25 million community fund, designed to support coastal communities throughout the operational life of the wind farm.

The Operator Fund is guided by a panel of representatives from joint venture partners Equinor and SSE Renewables, alongside independent representatives from NOF, the business development organisation behind the North East’s offshore wind cluster, Energi Coast.

The scheme has already helped a range of grassroots organisations.

In Redcar and Cleveland, Neurokey used the funding to pilot a Specialist Community Navigator supporting neurodiverse young people.

A Neurokey spokesman said: “With the help of Dogger Bank funding we were able to reach out to 20 parent carers who had been isolated and deemed not to fit access criteria for SEND support.

“We liaised with five schools to improve understanding of the range of neurodivergence and lobbied the NE Integrated Care System to explain how poor professional knowledge was driving a negative life impact.”

Gary and Hazel Hughes, organisers of the Walkington Ukulele Festival in the East Riding of Yorkshire, also received funding.

They said: “The Walkington Ukulele Festival (WUF) 2025 was a huge success with over two hundre ukulele enthusiasts and music lovers attending from the local community and from across the UK.

“The grant from the Dogger Bank Wind Farm Operator Fund was integral to delivering a successful festival and we are enormously thankful for the support provided.”

In South Tyneside, Bilton Hall Amateur Boxing Club used its grant to buy new Ergo boxing gloves.

Marty Devlin from the club said: “We are delighted with the new Ergo boxing gloves that we have purchased with the grant we received from the Dogger Bank Wind Farm Operator Fund.

“The gloves used in Amateur boxing have to be well padded and of very good quality for safety purposes and are expensive.

“When we later heard we had been successful in our application we let our young boxers know and it was like an early Xmas present for them, they could not wait to wear them.”

Eligible projects must be run by organisations with a formal constitution and be designed to improve quality of life in communities near the wind farm’s operations and maintenance base or grid connections.

Applications can be submitted at doggerbank.com/about/community/.