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Greensand Ridge LEADER funding bid

Bedfordshire Rural Affairs Forum, working with BRCC, coordinated a bid for the Greensand Ridge area to benefit from new EU funding. 

The application, led by local people to promote the communities, businesses and enterprises in the Greensand Ridge area of Bedfordshire, has won £3 million of funding awarded by the East of England Development Agency (EEDA) through the Rural Development Programme for England.  Funding totalling in excess of £20 million is to be allocated regionally between now and 2013 to Local Action Groups across the East of England through the Leader approach. The Leader approach is a community led ‘bottom up’ approach to project delivery where a group made up of private businesses and community interests provide a key role in defining and addressing local needs.  

This page will have updates on how the Local Development Strategy is being taken forward.  You can also find out more information about this new funding.

 

Latest Update

2 June

We were delighted to hear at the end of May that the Greensand Ridge Local Action Group's Leader bid has been approved by EEDA. This will bring in up to 3 million pounds over the next five years or so for our Local Development Strategy for the area.  EEDA press release

14 March

Today is EEDA's deadline, and the Greensand Ridge LAG's bid has been submitted - we hope to hear in May whether the bid has been successful.  Many thanks to all those businesses, organisations and individuals who have been part of the bid's development.

The bid:

Local Development Strategy - final (3MB)
LAG Area map  (pdf)
Year 1 workplan
Budget   (Excel)
Outputs (Excel)
Alignment with RDPE measures

7 March

We have prepared a Q&A to address some of the issues raised by the Local Action Group on 3 March.

6 March

The powerpoint presentations used at the public Open Evenings in February and at the Local Action Group meeting on 3 March are now on this site:    

Open evening. (Powerpoint, 2Mb)         
LAG  (Powerpoint, 0.5Mb)

The Buckinghamshire parishes have been taken out of the bid as they are now part of the Aylesbury Vale & Milton Keynes LAG proposal.   At its meeting on 3 March, the Local Action Group agreed the addition of Toddington, Shefford, Clifton, Meppershall, Sutton, Blunham, Tempsford to the Greensand Ridge bid. Criteria for parishes is that they need to be in the Joint Character Area as classified by Natural England, or for those on the edge, that their main service centre is within the area.

26 February

Cancellation of 27 February sub-group
We regret we have had to cancel tomorrow's final sub-group meeting at the Rufus Centre. The group was due to look at resource efficiency in the agri-food sector, green business growth, support for farmers/foresters diversifying into sustainable construction/energy products, green infrastructure planning, and carbon reduction.  If you have any comments you want to feed in to us on these issues, these would be very welcome. 

Our thanks to all those involved in the other sub-group meetings to date, which raised some helpful issues and ideas.  Work is continuing on the draft strategy and a final draft will be available later this week.

6 February

Following consideration by a regional panel of initial expressions of interest, the Greensand Ridge Local Action Group has been invited to submit a full Local Development Strategy (LDS).   We are setting up a number of meetings and consultations in February to shape the LDS.

Issues and objectives of the bid
Open evenings
Community consultation survey
Opportunities for the land based sector
Survey of farmers and other land-based industries
Future LAG and thematic meetings

Preparation of Local Development Strategy (LDS)

Get involved

If you would like to be involved in shaping the future of the Greensand Ridge, either as part of the Local Action Group, find out more or simply be added to the Greensand Ridge LEADER circulation list, please contact:  Jon Boswell  01767 626460 or Jane Markham 01525 878149 or email us or use the "sign-up/suggestions" sheet.

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