The Somerset Rural Renaissance Partnership (SRRP) awarded contracts to a range of project sponsors on  September 30th following the bids made by the deadline of September 1st.  As a consequence of these awards no further bids are now being invited other than for Workspace projects for the conversion of redundant buildings which have until November to complete their bids.

The bids received by Sept 1st effectively overbid for available resources by more than three times the amount of funds available. This indicates that there is no shortage of demand within the rural community for economic regeneration to be pump-primed with some public subsidy.

In addition to some commissioned activities by the SRRP the following projects are currently ‘live’ in 2008/09, subject to contract and will be delivered by the closing date of March 31st 2009. As you can see there are some very exciting initiatives:

»   West Somerset Economic Study – RR contribution of £5k towards a much larger project being led by West Somerset Council

»   Market Towns Investment Fund – £50k towards a £150k pot for 0809 being managed by Somerset County Council

»   Somerset Food & Drink Study –£15k towards £30k study into how to ensure effective support and intervention for this important sector

»   Churchinford Community Shop – £20k towards a new community shop to serve this and surrounding villages and boost sales of local produce - no longer going ahead

»  Milborne Port Economic study –£5k towards this to see what else could be done to boost the local economy, with the aim that the study might also be helpful to other similar towns as pointing the way to staying vibrant

»   On Track, Somerset Film - £9k for a pilot business support project for the film and video sub-sector of the Creative Industries. The project will assist a minimum of twelve rurally isolated businesses to improve their performance.

»   Rural business mentoring – £10k towards recruiting, training and deploying accredited mentors for small rural business within the South Somerset area.

»   Rural Routeway, ViSTA - £20k for this project that will deliver job search/work preparation/ support/ interview guarantees for 32 workless individuals in the rural locations of West Somerset and South Somerset.  All participants will be given the encouragement and opportunity to complete an accredited unit for work readiness skills within a range from the National Open College Network Progression Awards at level 1 or level 2.

»   Somerset - A Green & Pleasant landscape project - £10k to increase the number of tourism businesses participating in and gaining Green Tourism Business Scheme accreditation

»  Project Greenskill, Somerset Rural Youth Project - £12.5k for the project to introduce young people to land-based and environmental skills though a co-ordinated programme of volunteering

»   Somerset Festivals audit and development work - £15k for the cost of carrying out a Somerset wide audit of festival, carnivals and parish events creating an event calendar for Somerset and to establish an on line toolkit providing the events community with access to all the relevant information and guidance required to stage events, find resources, artists and musicians.

 These final awards were timely as the SRRP Chairman, Rupert Cox, was advised by the Regional Development Agency in a letter on October 3rd that no further contracts could be entered into by the Partnership other than for the Workspace Programme, which has the ‘window’ open until the end of November.