Innovative Community Regeneration Project in Braunton, Devon

North Devon has an exciting and innovative 12 month project running in Braunton which I discovered whilst browsing West Country web sites and blogs this week.

The Braunton 12 month project is aimed at

enhancing / highlighting the educational potential of a village called Braunton in Devon, south west England

I contacted the project officer to enquire about potential economic benefits and she kindly contributed the following:

The potential benefits are varied, I'm aiming to improve the educational potential of the area but also provide some economic opportunities for local people and businesses. I'll soon be recruiting walk guides, on a volunteer basis at first (as many already are here) but offering some sort of training scheme whereby guides become affiliated with the project. It won't be a nationally recognised qualification by any means but may help the existing band of volunteers to be more organised and ultimately to start charging for their services. I am working with local tourism providers too to encourage take-up of such a scheme and hope it will be a great success.

My first priority however is to get the multimedia tour devices working

This is an interesting project which stands a very good chance of helping with the regeneration of the Braunton area.

It is an example of regeneration through community projects which arguably works far better than millions of pounds put into capital building projects.

Bye for now

Rob Hopcott
Online author

Could Exmoor and West Somerset Regenerate by Copying Tiverton Energy Centre?

Tiverton Energy Centre aims to be a centre of excellence for the production of renewable electricity and fuel for the Tiverton community.

Tiverton Energy Centre, located in Devon, seems to be one of the most fascinating sustainable community developments of its kind in the UK. Over the next 5 years, they aim to make Tiverton, with its 20,000 population, 100% non dependant on fossil fuels. It will transform Tiverton into a zero waste to landfill town resulting in reduced greenhouse gas emissions, it aims to help reduce Tiverton's impact on the environment and aims to help to slow down climate change. Further benefits could be reduced waste disposal costs for every household and reduced council tax charges!

This is the sort of innovative project that Exmoor and West Somerset could do well to emulate. It seems win win for everybody, except perhaps the oil companies. Read more about Tiverton Energy Centre.

Bye for now

Rob

Successful rural economic regeneration through small business growth - a radical, commonsense and honest approach

The secret of rural economic regeneration is simple. In the absence of being able to parachute in a very large company offering lots of well-paid jobs, the strategy that is simply most likely to increase the number of jobs and improve wage rates is to boost small business activity in the area.

Small business growth is a simple commonsense approach where the difficulties lie in its detailed execution. However, It is arguably a more honest and realistic approach than many of the large, grandiose capital schemes and costly consultant's surveys that bedevil the regeneration industry.

There are three main steps that need to be taken to achieve economic regeneration in a rural area through small business growth.

Existing small businesses in the rural area needs to be identified and approached to see if they have an interest in expansion and growth. This is a necessary step because not all small businesses want to grow. Some are quite happy with their existing trading practices and it is pointless offering them incentives to grow unless they are fully committed to the project. Those that want to expand should have an expansion programme with targets agreed and a realistic plan defined to achieve the growth. An experienced troubleshooter that is completely committed to the businesses expansion and has access to regeneration funding to carry out the business plan must be allocated. Audit review dates must be agreed to ensure the plan stays on track with continued funding.

In a given rural area, it is very likely that there are only a limited number of small businesses and it is also possible that many are quite happy to stay small and operate without change. It is therefore imperative that incentives are provided for small businesses operating outside the area to relocate to within the rural regeneration area. An advertising programme is necessary that clearly specifies the advantages of the rural area and the regeneration help that will be provided to small businesses willing to relocate and take on the expansion challenge. Relocation grants will also be necessary. Once the small businesses have relocated into the rural area, the regeneration process continues as for existing small businesses.

Incentives also need to be offered for new business start ups. The advertising and marketing of these incentives needs to be both within the rural area and externally to other areas. The programme of help for start up businesses will obviously be somewhat different to the programme of help for existing businesses. However there are two fundamentally similar aspects, firstly the troubleshooter or mentor and secondly the availability of grant funding, both of which are critical.

Fundamental to this approach to rural economic regeneration are the roles of the troubleshooter or mentor and the grant funding. It is vital that the troubleshooter or mentor should be totally committed to the success of the small businesses to which they are allocated and, specifically, the detailed achievement of the expansion business plan. The remuneration of the troubleshooter or mentor should therefore be directly linked to the success of the regenerative business plan. It is vital that first class troubleshooters or mentors are used for this regeneration process. The problems facing small businesses participating in this regeneration process will not be easy otherwise obviously they would have solved their small businesses expansion aims themselves without help.

The provision of a few training courses in the hope that they will boost a particular small business is almost certainly inadequate. The expansionary business plans must be rigorous, auditable and expansion results quantifiable.

Threats to the success of such a rural regeneration programme are to be found internally and externally.

A threat internal to the area that must be recognised from the outset is the nature of the bureaucracies that are likely to be co-ordinating the release of the grant funding. Bureaucracies understand bureaucracy. They do not understand small business and they certainly don't understand how to make small businesses successful. Their role, ideally, should be minimised to within the audit function. The regenerative small business growth must be solely driven by the entrepreneurial activities of the troubleshooting mentor and the business owner who are best qualified.

External threats come from many different directions and include the competitive activities of other small or large businesses. However, these threats will be quantified and taken into account within the individual small business growth plan.

It is possible that some of the requirements for expansion of individual businesses can be achieved through a joint programme, perhaps managed by the regeneration agency in some form. However any such coordinated plan should grow out of the individual plans of the individual small businesses and not as a grand scheme initiated from the grant awarding body.

The objective of this approach to rural regeneration is to achieve improved employment prospects for those living in the area and for those who may be attracted to employment in the area by engaging small businesses within the area, outside the area and new start ups in an audited and funded programme of growth.

The success of the execution of this plan can easily be measured by the increase in jobs and the increase in their wage rates.

This is an honest commonsense approach that seeks to apply change pressure to the heart of the rural regeneration economic engine whilst bypassing the management double talk and grandiose schemes apparently adopted in the past by regeneration agencies to the detriment of genuine rural economic regeneration.

Your comments are welcome.

Bye for now

Rob

Your Exmoor & West Somerset rural regeneration ideas, requirements or questions

This page has been set aside for your rural regeneration proposals or requirements.

An example of the sort of question that might be appropriate can be found listed top right of this blog under 'Key Regeneration Questions we must answer'.

I would very much like to add your suggestions about how Exmoor and West Somerset could be regenerated to this blog.

Simply add your proposal or requirement as a comment below and I will endeavour to add it, in summary form, to the list.

Ideas or suggestions that do not need millions of pounds to be spent would be particularly welcome but lets try for a comprehensive wish list. Maybe we can still find a way of funding the requirement even if it does involve millions of pounds.

I really look forward to hearing your suggestions about the regeneration needs of Exmoor and West Somerset.

Bye for now

Rob

Barnstaple Rocks with Innovative Regeneration Idea

Barnstaple has a new live entertainment venue that deserves much publicity and which could act as a trailblazing idea for other areas seeking youth orientated regeneration. According to the organisers, it has "the potential to be the best venue south of Bristol."

The Factory at Roundswell during the daytime is used for Music Performance and Technology courses run by North Devon College. But, in the evenings, it transforms itself into a 500-capacity venue able to offer a wide range of entertainment.

For more information on this great young community building innovative idea, visit their informative web site thefactoryonline.co.uk

Have we buildings in West Somerset that could be used by young people to make music? Is it happening? How is it marketed? What can we do to make it grow?

I have often heard young people say "Why would we want to stay in West Somerset?"

Could this sort of activity persuade them to stay and for other young people to want to come and join them?

Bye for now

Rob

If Southwark Council and others can run a discussion forum, why can't Exmoor and West Somerset?

If Southwark Council can run a public discussion forum, why can't West Somerset?

Over the weekend, I was surfing using the term 'rural regeneration forum' and was disappointed by the results. For example there was the Staffordshire County Council Rural Regeneration Forum which seemed to be just a collection of links to advice without any public interaction whatsoever. It beats me how they can call it a forum. However, they are not alone and many Local Authorities in England use the term where there appears only to be one way communication from them to the public.

Never being one to give up easily, I decided to have another go today and typed in the search term 'regeneration discussion forums'. Bingo!

It seems that the word 'discussion' makes all the difference; and how pleasing it was to see that other Councils have already taken the step to providing public interactive discussion on regeneration. Also, there are plenty of private individuals who have also jumped in and managed to get people to use their regeneration discussion forums.

I need to do more research to get a balanced view on their success or otherwise but one thing I did notice, generally, was the lack of answers or interaction with Local Authority representatives. There is little point in people making points and asking questions if those who have the facts and figures do not participate.

Making a service available is only the first step. How it is used determines how successful it is.

It would be interesting to hear of any experiences people have had. Come on spill the beans and share :-)

Your comments are welcome below.

Bye for now

Rob

Useful community forum facilities

Rod over at the Catalyst Social Business Blog suggested two community forum resources which look good for helping people to build local communities.

I have put details of them on my involving people in government blog.

Hope it helps

Rob

Social entrepreneurs may offer hope for Exmoor and West Somerset

Yesterday, the Saturday task I set myself was to research social entrepreneurship as a potential resource that might help Exmoor and West Somerset raise our low average local wage levels that West Somerset Community College principal Nick Swann mentioned in his recent letter to parents about the collapse of the New Horizons funding.

It was a very frustrating day. Finding something to get hold of in the immensely complicated labyrinths of the South West Regional Development Agency and other similar organisations was challenging to say the least. There seem to be lots of organisations with colossal amounts of Government money to spend. How much of this money is increasing wage levels in Exmoor and West Somerset is doubtful and a question I must return to on another day.

However, I did come across some references to blogs about the benefits social entrepreneurs bring to an area. I've started to put details of these blogs on my involving people in government web log but a good starting point is the one at the School for Social Entrepreneurs, from which others can be accessed.

All this got me to thinking about whether I had come across any social entrepreneurs personally. A few minutes thought and I was astounded by the number of people I could think of who were having a large impact on local areas by running socially orientated activities.

The Wessex Folk Festival over in Weymouth, when I attended it last year, was a huge event managed by a committee of hard working volunteers and headed by an extremely energetic lady. It must have benefited local businesses immensely by attracting visitors to the town.

The Bampton Folk Festival too, with it's origins in the traditional Horse fair, is managed by a small number of volunteers with a very hard working lady playing a key roll.

Recently, Dulverton had a Folk and Flower Festival and Carhampton had it's own Folk Festival. Both events played their part in bringing both money and enjoyment to those areas.

Perhaps a key way of regenerating Exmoor and West Somerset relies on persuading top social entrepreneurs to set up activities locally and for the rest of us to give them our fullest support.

Perhaps regeneration is much more about energetic and able people not large and expensive regional organisations and huge capital projects.

If you know of social entrepreneurship that is having a regenerative impact, I would love to hear about them. Please include details in your comments below.

Bye for now

Rob

West Somerset Council's troubleshooter - key duties should include improving public's participation in decision-making

Support for whistle blowing Cllr Mitch Wicking, as evidenced by letters to the editor in the West Somerset Free Press today (January 4th, 2008) suggests that the great Exmoor and West Somerset public strongly favour blowing away the fog of secrecy that has hitherto surrounded Council decisions.

Unfortunately, the key list of duties for Dr Neal, if he is approved by councillors, does not currently appear to anticipate such improvements.

Let's start the New Year with a clear commitment from the Council to open government by setting improved public participation in decision-making as a key duty for West Somerset Council's interim manager.

The New Year has brought much opportunity to make positive change for local people in Exmoor and West Somerset.

Common sense, however, needs to be kept at the heart of these changes which the local public's support for Cllr Mitch Wicking shows they, the public, have in abundance.

Let's make 2008 a new year of productive and positive dialogue between the Council and the general public and start achieving some real benefits for the local community.

In a four-page letter to parents, reported in the Free Press, the West Somerset Community College principal Nick Swann, who has been a key player in the healthplex concept 'New Horizons', describes the grim realities facing locals whose weekly wages are £70 below the national average and the part he believes the project would play in improving matters.

Certainly, few would question the good work done at the Community College for our young people or the benefits of improving local hospital services.

However, whether local average wages would benefit from the project, to me, is very much more open to question.

In a recent comment to me, Keith Ross, The Leader of West Somerset District Council described how his wife helps organise the annual perambulation of Exmoor, a 32 mile hike around the ancient forest boundary in June starting and finishing at Pinkworthy Outdoor centre, its growth over the years and its beneficial effect on the local economy.

Now that is the sort of regenerative project that I can understand and it does not cost millions of pounds and years of waiting (perhaps forever), to implement.

Even if a persuasive connection can be made between the New Horizons project and improving average wages locally, what cost benefit comparisons were done with other locally based projects on which the millions could have been spent?

As suggested by Clive Knight, ex-director of Visit Exmoor, in his impassioned and apparently angry and hurt reply to MP Ian Liddell-Grainger's November article in the Free Press:

£35,000 [from West Somerset Council to Visit Exmoor] is a pitiful contribution to the area's largest industry and biggest employer ... This level of support would be laughable if it wasn't so serious.

How much could the average wage in Exmoor and West Somerset be increased by putting just some of the New Horizons millions into promoting the local tourist industry? Perhaps the pay back from investing more in the local tourism community might be rather faster and more certain?

Open Local Government means letting the public have access to these facts and figures and exposing the detailed arguments to the harsh reality of common sense.

Your comments are, of course, welcome.


Bye for now

Rob