Complementary Rural Funding in West Yorkshire

Leader is part of an overall package of rural activity as set out in the Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE) and Yorkshire & Humber Regional Implementation Plan. The RDPE funds various strands including;

1. improving the competitiveness of farming and forestry sectors
2. improving the environment and countryside
3. rural quality of life and diversification of the rural economy
4. the leader approach

Yorkshire Forward is responsible for delivering the socio-economic elements of the activities listed above (1,3 & 4). The Forestry Commission and Natural England will be delivering the agri-environmental activities (2) – see below).

Yorkshire Forward has worked with partners in the region to design 5 programmes of support through which rural businesses and communities can access funding;

i) The Rural Enterprise Investment Programme is a package of support for rural businesses wanting to start up or expand, and needing to access over £25,000 of public funding to take their businesses forward.

ii) Rural Business Support Programme is part of the support that businesses can access via Business Link, and is targeted at;
a) new rural enterprises.
b) genuine new rural enterprise within an existing business, where the applicant is committed to establishing the new enterprise as a new business within two years.
c) for an initial period of 12 months from 1st April 2009, a rural businesses where the investment is to fund genuine potential for growth.
d) rural retail businesses, where an existing business is essential to the rural community. These businesses are eligible for support through the Rural Retail Scheme.

The above applies to all “micro” businesses ie a business with a maximum of 10 FTE employees, with the exception of “tourism” & “farm diversification” where this applies to all businesses irrespective of size.

Grants of up to £25,000 are available through the programme; the minimum grant amount is £2,000 although this will be looked at on a case by case basis. Applicants should note that grant investment is available at 40% towards eligible capital/revenue costs.

Funding can cover 70% of eligible technical training costs related to the proposal. Training costs should not exceed 50% of the grant total and must be no more than £3,500 per individual.

iii) Land Based Industries- Skills and Knowledge Transfer Program is providing support to the agricultural and forestry sectors to upskill and improve business performance.

iv) The Farm Resource Efficiency Programme – FREP is a small capital-grants programme which helps livestock farmers introduce new technology to promote efficiency in energy, manure management and water resource management.

v) “LEADER”: is the fifth of these approaches to rural funding and will focus primarily on basic services for rural communities, rural culture and heritage, village development and renewal.

The core strategy for the South Pennines LEADER programme can be found here Download (Core strategy).

Natural England and the Forestry Commission deliver the majority of RDPE funding via agri-environment and forestry schemes.

Energy Crops Scheme provides grants to land managers to plant Miscanthus (Elephant Grass) and Short Rotation Coppice crops to produce biomass energy. Energy crops are used as a substitute for fossil fuels and can help mitigate climate change.

Environmental Stewardship is an agri-environment scheme which has three elements: Entry Level Stewardship (ELS), Organic Entry Level Stewardship (OELS), Higher Level Stewardship (HLS). ELS is a point-based scheme that gives farmers a number of options for managing their land in an environmentally-sensitive way. OELS is similar but is geared to organic farming systems. HLS builds on ELS and OELS but concentrates on individually tailored agreements that deal with more complex types of land management.

The English Woodland Grant Scheme is the Forestry Commission’s suite of grants designed to develop the co-ordinated delivery of public benefits from England’s woodlands.