The Local Action Programmes are part of the wider Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE), which is a major initiative to support rural regeneration across England.
The RDPE runs until 2013, and is worth £3.9 billion overall, jointly funded by the EU and national Government. It is part of the Common Agricultural Policy. It aims to support and promote sustainable farming, forestry and food sectors, and also to bring wider benefits for the economy, the environment and rural communities.
You can see the prospectus for the overall programme here which explains a bit about the history and background to the programme.
It is the first major investment scheme of its type to be tailored for local delivery, and many organisations and agencies have been involved in its development. The South West of England Regional Development Agency (SWRDA) have led this process for this region, and it is now possible for grass roots organisations to get their hands on some of the funding to run important projects that meet the overall objectives of the programme:
- Improving business efficiency and enabling business transformation
- Developing the supply chain and adding value
- Managing resources efficiently
- Making the most of our rural environment
- Enhancing landscapes and biodiversity
- Developing and maintaining strong and inclusive rural communities
There are eight specific themes that have been developed by SWRDA as being particularly relevant to this region:
- Skills development
- Social enterprise support
- Business support
- Supply chain and adding value
- Resource management (soil, water, energy, waste)
- Sustainable rural tourism
- Biodiversity and landscape
- Community-led development – this is the Local Action part of the programme (see below)
Local Action
The aim of Local Action is to enable rural communities to diversify and strengthen their local economy and to improve the quality of life for people living in those communities, in particular building on the activities supported through other parts of the RDPE.
The core objectives of Local Action are:
- Addressing economic under performance.
- Improving provision and access to services as a means of tackling disadvantage
- Harnessing wider economic value from sustainable environmental quality
- Developing local governance and delivery capacity in rural areas
15 Local Action Groups have been set up in the South West of England. Each of us prepared a Local Development Strategy for our local area to interpret the regional objectives and put a local slant on them, and we submitted them to SWRDA in order to bid for funding.
- Greater Dartmoor Local Enterprise Action Group – awarded £1.8 million
- South Devon Coastal Local Action Group – awarded £1.8 million
- Isles of Scilly Local Action Group - awarded £2.25 million
We then pulled together partnerships of local community representatives to work out on a practical level how we would spend this money wisely to make as much difference as possible to our local areas.
These were then submitted in the form of delivery plans to the RDA for approval, and detail the day to day running of the programmes along with the how decisions on projects will be made. The systems that have been set up ensure that all applications are dealt with fairly and that every stage of decision making is fully auditable. This ensures that the public money is used appropriately.
We also understand that many applicants for this funding may not have experienced of applying using such detailed systems previously so we have dedicated officers available in each Local Action area to help you turn your project ideas into reality.
