A £300,000 fund has been opened to help local authorities respond to changing road use and emerging road safety issues as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Launched by the Road Safety Trust, the fund will be open to applications on 15 September for five weeks. Each project will get between £20,000 and £50,000.

Since it was established in 2014, the Road Safety Trust has awarded grants worth £3.7m to 49 different projects.

Sally Lines, chief executive of Road Safety Trust said: ‘We are pleased to be able to reintroduce our grant-giving this year and be responsive to current road safety issues with our Small Grants Plus Programme to help smaller local projects around the UK.

‘We are focusing this round of funding on the changing road use and emerging safety issues as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Projects should have the potential for being brought to scale, with the ultimate goal of reducing deaths and injuries both locally, and across the UK.’