The Stromness Townscape Heritage Initiative has announced plans to issue grants to enable town centre retailers to renovate their shop fronts during winter 2011.

The grants are part of an on-going project to restore the conservation area of Stromness.

Under the Winter 2011 grants scheme, the Stromness THI team will promote the grants to retailers within the Stromness Conservation Area for up to 75% of the costs of works to shop signage and shop fronts (maximum grant value £3000).

Additional points will be awarded during the usual THI assessment process for projects, which involve shop fronts or signage, for added incentive.

The Stromness THI Grants have two lines of funding available for properties within the Stromness Conservation Area: Large grants and small grants.

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Large grants are available to properties in the conservation area for comprehensive repairs such as chimneys, roofs and down-pipes.

These have no upper financial cap but will be awarded up to a maximum of 50% award. A total of £150,000 is presently available for large grant awards.

Small grants are available for properties where there may be one element requiring repair or where a property has already had considerable investment but needs attention to upgrade one element remaining, for example, to replace plastic rainwater goods with cast iron.

These grants are capped at 50% of costs with a maximum financial value of £3000. There is a total of £50,000 available for small grant awards.

To be eligible to apply for a grant each property will be assessed and scored against a points system.

The assessment considers the prominence of the property, the historical authenticity of the building and the works proposed.

To be considered for a 'large grant', properties will need to attract 20 points or over, with the threshold for 'small grants' being 10 points.

To date, the Stromness THI has awarded £1,377,288 in property grants to 22 properties within the Stromness Conservation Area.

A further five properties have 'decision in principle' taking the proportion of funds now committed to around 80% of the current budget available.

(JG/GK)