The Rochester Bridge Trust is inviting applications before the deadline of Friday, 29 June 2012, for the first stage of its 2012 grants programme.

The Trust's grants programme provides support for a variety of local projects, and this year applications are particularly encouraged for projects relating to:

• Education, research and conservation of artefacts in the field of construction (particularly related to bridges);


• Promotion of study of civil engineering and related disciplines;


• Purchase of equipment and resources to assist schoolchildren in the study of engineering at after-school science or technology clubs; and


• Projects to preserve, to improve, to develop further understanding of the history of the River Medway and its crossings.

The Trust’s main purpose is to provide crossings of the River Medway. It is able to make only limited funds available for other grants. The maximum grant available for 2012 will be £4,000 per project, and most grants are likely to be for a lesser amount. Applications for sums in excess of £4,000 will be rejected.

Application packs are available from the Trust's website, by email, or by writing to The Rochester Bridge Trust, Bridge Chamber, 5 Esplanade, Rochester, Kent ME1 1QE.

Please check the grants policy and conditions carefully, as applications that do not comply will not be successful.

Grants from the Rochester Bridge Trust

In addition to its primary purpose of providing River Medway crossings, the Trust has over the years supported through grants other projects in Kent – bringing the first grammar school education for girls to Maidstone and Rochester in 1887 by founding Maidstone Girls Grammar School and Rochester Grammar School for Girls and funding work on other primary schools and churches in parishes where it owned property.

In recent years, the Trust has broadened the range of projects it supports and since 1991 has awarded over £5 million in small grants to more than 300 Kent charities and numerous churches in the county. The Trust has also made major grants for the restoration of Rochester Cathedral, the development of the intensive care unit at Medway Hospital, and the establishment of a chair at Wye College.

To this day, the Trust maintains a tradition of supporting education. In 2008 a grant from the Trust enabled the appointment of the first Professor of Bridge and Tunnel Engineering at the University of Greenwich. Grants from the Trust have also supported a new gallery for bridge models at the Royal Engineers Museum in Gillingham and sponsored the museum's annual bridge building competition for schools.

Left: Sponsored by the Rochester Bridge Trust and the Arkwright Scholarship Trust, students test out ground penetrating radar at the University of Greenwich at Medway.