Breadcrumbs
£20 million village lifeline - 1 March 2001
Community Service Grants (from a new £15 million fund over three years) will be available for a whole series of rural projects. Villages themselves will propose how to meet the needs of young and old people, the less mobile and other members of rural communities who rely on local services. Their ideas might include:
- improving or reopening village shops (as the residents of Temple Guiting, Gloucestershire have just done, reopening the Post Office and village shop, which they will run themselves)
- pubs (as at the Jack Russell, in Swimbridge, Devon, where outbuildings were converted for use by their local community and provide a much-needed youth club (and skittle alley)
- childcare (as in the South Lincolnshire Playbus, which provides play and learning facilities for young children in remote rural locations)
- information and internet points (as around Alford, Lincolnshire, where 10 IT access points in the surrounding villages are connected to a central information base in town)
- local training schemes (as in Tynedale, Northumberland, where flexible outreach ICT training is being delivered to isolated communities)
- churches (as in Gwithian, Cornwall, where the church hall hosts the GP from Marazion, the playgroup, WI and gardening club)
The grants can be claimed from April this year - from £500 to £25,000 each from the Countryside Agency. There will be an option for communities to make some of their 25% contribution in kind, through volunteer effort.
Parish and town councils will also be able to claim up to £5,000 (in a separate scheme for which £5 million is available) to produce action plans to address locally identified needs. These will cover:
- sites for local affordable housing
- guidelines to help new development fit the character of the village
- ideas for improving transport
- other local service improvements which could be funded from the new Community Service Grants.
Countryside Agency chief executive, Richard Wakeford, said: "All over England there are villages where people are suffering because services are inadequate. 'They should do something about it' is so often the local moan. But now villagers can do something about it themselves. Our new scheme will help villages tackle their own problems. Local ideas are often the best. We won't be setting out to tell anyone what to do. It' s what we call 'discovery, not direction'. We will be ready with the cash to turn dreams into reality. What's more, we will aim to turn the applications round quickly - as so often, local enthusiasm dissipates while funders dither.
"Not all communities can sustain a range of conventional services. We want people to think creatively about how services could be delivered differently and more effectively. Some communities might want to establish and run their own enterprises - a shop or a nursery - others might look at ways of sharing facilities, making better use of what already exists or combining things in one place - a shop and a pub, a doctor's surgery in a village hall. By using local expertise and knowledge they can meet the needs of the whole community in imaginative ways.
"We want these new grants to make a real difference to individual lives and to the community as a whole. So everyone, no matter how old, or how young, or whatever their circumstances, should have a voice in identifying what they want, what they value, how they want their village to grow and what services they need to support them. That will help local authorities and others who provide local services to see what is needed and respond.
"Villages won't be doing this on their own. We will be putting communities and parishes in touch with each other (through good practice guides and the Internet) to share ideas and experience of what has worked - or hasn't - elsewhere. In this way, these schemes will be part of a real rural renaissance in which communities can have the confidence to take more control over their own future."
Full details of the scheme will be available from April and will also be placed on the Countryside Agency's web site www.countryside.gov.uk Communities and individuals can obtain basic information and register their interest now by calling 0870 333 0170.
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Note to editors:
The new fund will encompass the Countryside Agency's existing village shop development and public house schemes. 600 village shops have already been helped - 75% of them reporting increased business as a result.
The Countryside Agency is responsible for advising government and taking action on issues affecting the social, economic and environmental well-being of the English countryside.
For further information please contact Isobel Coy or Nigel Ellway on 0207 340 2906 / 7
