Government concerned that Landfill Communities Fund isn’t being spent

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New options to improve the Landfill Communities Fund are to be considered by the Government after it revealed not enough of the money is being spent.

Introduced alongside the Landfill Tax in 1996, the Landfill Communities Fund allows landfill site operators to claim a credit against their landfill tax liability for voluntary contributions directly to environmental bodies.

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Despite providing £1.2 billion in total funds for community projects since launch, the Treasury said that environmental bodies had accumulated large amounts of unspent money that was not reaching communities as quickly as it should.

The Government had challenged these environmental bodies to reduce the amount of unspent funds by 15 per cent by 2012, and this was extended to 25 per cent by April 2014.

New figures published by the Treasury show that unspent funds had only been reduced by 17 per cent.

As a result, the Government will now “consider different options in consultation with landfill site operators, environmental bodies and their regulatory body ENTRUST to improve the flow of funding to communities.”