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RECENT EVENTS

Jenny Bristow and North Antrim Leader got together to highlight the wealth of local food in the area and how local catering establishments can benefit from its use.

NAL+ along with the Ballymoney, Ballymena, Larne and Moyle Councils ran a local food event with Jenny Bristow, our very own local celebrity chef and food expert on 2nd April in Tullyglass House Hotel.

Working under the inspirational enthusiasm and guidance of Andrew Mc Allister and his team at North Antrim Leader it was a celebration of inspiration both through many of our local companies here today and a very passionate group of people under the Ambassador Programme at Jenny Bristow.com to develop and reap rewards for local good food suppliers.

Jenny was delighted to have created a Master Class around the following suppliers with specific recipes written especially to develop and to promote their produce.

Damien Mc Closkey of Causeway Cheese.

Ivan Mc Mullan of Glen Tender Ltd and their wide variety of meat produce.

Virginia Maxwell and her selection of chutneys – an area of food that is growing rapidly in appeal and use.

Hugh Reid from Dundermot Farm House Ice-Cream at Glarryford with a very popular range of ice-creams and sorbets.

Hugh and Clare Anderson from Gracehill Fine Foods for their black and white pudding.

John McDowell of Bush Valley Fresh Produce for their local vegetable supply and meeting the consumers convenience market.

Niall Delargy of Ballyeamon eggs for their supply of eggs including free range and which I used in a variety of new inspirational ways which captured the inspiration of not only our local suppliers, catering establishments, outlets, tourism awareness but also to help each individual company to have a new and invigorated enthusiasm in their produce realising that there is the good food of our future to be used and enjoyed.

All the recipes can be downloaded from www.jennybristow.com website

The outline below is a summary of the success of North Antrim Leader and identifies issues for the new programme.

NORTH ANTRIM LEADER+ - A SUCCESS STORY

There is a wealth of experience of Leader and the rural development process in this area from the very start of the Leader and rural Development Programme in 1991. An initial project was set up in 1992 with the Antrim Glens Cottages Programme which involved self-catering properties and which is still operational today by our partners in North Antrim Community Network (NACN). North Antrim Leader Ltd was set up in 1995 as part of the Leader II Programme with the Lower Bann Leader area setting up an equivalent organisation up 2 years later (these two organisations merged to form North Antrim Leader+ Ltd (NAL+) in 2001) Leader II was a much more wide ranging programme covering agriculture, tourism, community development, small business and co-operation projects. All four of the present NAL+ Councils were involved in this programme. Over £1m in grant-aid was allocated to a wide range of projects and Leader II was seen by the EU as one of the top three Leader programmes in Europe .

Leader II then evolved into the present Leader+ programme which is a partnership between the four Councils of Ballymena, Ballymoney, Larne, Moyle and NACN. This commenced in May 2002 (late, which caused issues concerning spend – the infamous N+2 issue) and is due to finish in May 2008. This programme is very focussed on support for small local businesses – an unusual focus at EU level which in virtually all other countries was a much wider initiative, similar to the Leader II programme. Indeed this wide approach showed how Leader was the most effective method to deliver rural Development programmes throughout Europe in terms of outputs. Despite this narrowness of the NI programme its success demonstrated the flexibility of the Leader approach with the following outputs being achieved to date

•  165 job created

•  412 businesses assisted

•  £2.4m spend and lever in further £3.8m (total of over £6.2m)

It also succeeded on other levels, especially in the areas of networking, co-operation and as a vehicle for delivery other funds to North Antrim .

Networking

NAL+ could have simply taken its role as a rural business support agency and operated this programme without reference to other organisations in the sector and area. However NAL+ quickly identified that one of the strengths of Leader is its facility for networking. NAL+ thus has worked with all the agencies which operate in the small business area – LEA’s, Invest NI, local council’s economic development departments and many others such as private companies like Michelin Development. We also participated in meetings, seminars etc with any organisation which was working in North Antrim to maximise the input of our strategy and the other relevant strategies in the area.

Our community partner NACN, also ensured that even if our focus was not particularly relevant to the community sector, we were aware of the issues.

This networking facility will enable any new LAG to have a model of the importance and relevance of good networking.

Co-operation

This has always been identified as an integral part of Leader, whereby new ideas and best practice could be drawn together from all over Europe . Again NAL+ has been to the forefront of this process with more projects (7 in all) that any other NI group covering the following areas.

Woolcraft – use of sheep products especially wool

Farmers Markets – operating in Ballymoney

Women into Enterprise – helping female entrepreneurs

Food & Cultural Tourism – highlighting local food and culture

Biker Tourism – encouraging bikers to visit area

Cutting costs/reducing risks – helping Health and Safety in small businesses

Enterprise International – helping small rural businesses to identify potential for export

We are also the only group to work outside UK and Ireland on transnational projects. Overall this meant NAL+ drew in an extra £220,000 in funding, again significantly more than other areas.

Co-operation will again be a vital part of the next programme and the NAL+ experience gives a good model. There is also a wealth of contacts made with good relationships with 14 other LAG’s in the UK , ROI and Europe in addition to the other 11 NI LAGS. All of these groups without exception would like to further develop linkages. Indeed some groups (our Scottish neighbours – Dumfries & Galloway and Argyll and the Islands are examples) have already formally named North Antrim as an area with which they wish to co-operate in the next round of rural development programmes.

Funding vehicle

Again this is an area where NAL+ has been innovative and successful. We set up a joint company (Imeall Tra Teo or Edge of the Shore Ltd) with the West Donegal Leader Group and this has drawn down over £1.8m to both areas with a range of funds being involved (Peace II, Interreg, Department of Foreign Affairs and others. The Northern Ireland Leader Groups also deliver a Farm diversification measure through BSP. This is worth approximately £120,000 to our area.

This flexibility has been possible because of the independent company status of NAL+. Again there is a lesson to be taken on board about making any delivery structure flexible enough to identify other funding sources and deliver them in a co-ordinated and integrated way

NAL+ has also linked the agricultural and rural development sectors with all of the staff and many of the directors coming from farming backgrounds. It is important that a rural programme is implemented that is inclusive and that the farming and others parts of the rural community work together. NAL+ is one of the few organisations that have successfully linked these sectors (e.g. over 55% of our grants were allocated to farmers or farm families). Leader also provides a mechanism which could help deliver large parts of Axis 1 – farm competiveness and even carry out programmes in Axis 2 (environmental sustainability).

It is also worth mentioning that The NI approach to Rural Development and the Leader delivery system is at variance with nearly every other EU state. EU legislation states (Council Regulation (EC) No 1698/2005) LAGs “must consist of either a group already qualified for. Leader+ or be a new group…..”). In NI we have insisted on a completely new system.

Future Rural Development Delivery and Funding

The new NIRDP offers an opportunity for an integrated, customer focussed, inclusive and democratic approach. The move to involve the Councils to a much greater extent is to be welcomed as is the wide focus and increased budget. This fresh approach will be enhanced if it is implemented using the existing experience and lessons learned by existing Leader and other rural development bodies.

If we disband all the existing organisations and start completely from scratch we will lose this experience and will expend considerable energy developing new structures, new procedures and new funding mechanisms. The LAG structure is now a proven method of delivering rural development programmes – this is the reason Europe is putting it forward as the principal approach to rural delivery. It is vital that this new LAG is a strong and effective body which can work at a strategic level throughout the area. It needs to have a range of people both experienced in the process as well as new members to add freshness and vitality. This new LAG must also be involved in the initial consultation and formative stages of the programme as any partnership such as a LAG must involve all its partners at every stage.

I would argue that the basis for the new LAG should include:

• Leader Groups

• North Antrim Community Network-which is already a partner within NAL+ and which covers the same council areas and the Oakleaf Rural Network.
• Causeway Coast and Heritage Trust-which also includes a further 4 council areas
• The Farming organisations-UFU and NIAPA.
• New players and organisations esp. those involving young people
• Section 75 must be considered when setting up the LAG

In addition there are a range of bodies which also have a lesser involvement such as LEAs, Regional Tourism Partnership Community Transport and the RDC and RCN which operate rural programmes presently at NI level.

These partners would ensure the process could be delivered quickly and could help integrate the new members into the system. It requires a long time to build a LAG from scratch – this has been evident from the accession countries where it has taken up to 3 years for LAG’s to get to the point where they are effective programme delivers.

Obviously DARD has allocated a substantial sum to the Councils to help construct and animate a strategy. There is a considerable number of experienced staff in both councils and other rural organisations which could add real value to these vital initial stages and who have the local knowledge of the area and the other relevant strategies which could inform new rural policy.

It is important to note that both the EU and DARD require the delivery model to be based on the Leader methodology, NAL+ (which covers four council areas) and COLLAGE (Coleraine area) are the only organisations that have operated this model over the last 10 years and who have detailed knowledge of its criteria and how to make it work.

The Leader principles as outlined by EU legislation must be the basis on which any new programme will be based

• Area based
• Public-private partnerships(at least 50% not statutory)
• bottom up-with decision making power for LAG
• multi-sectoral
• innovation
• co-operation projects
• networking of local partnerships

NAL+ has delivered directly in several of the proposed measures within Axis3-indeed these are the measures with the largest percentage of the budget.

• Farm diversification
• Micro business
• Rural Tourism

In addition through our Imeall Tra partner we have been involved with Peace, Interreg and other funds which have been heavily slanted towards the tourism and heritage sectors. Our partners in Leader-North Antrim Community Network (NACN) have also extensive delivery experience in the Village Renewal and Basic Services areas.

Our case is thus not that NAL+, any other Leader Group or NACN should be the sole deliverers of the new RDP but that they could and should form a key part of the new Rural Development delivery system. Once again I would stress that our aim is to ensure that the best approach for the area is adopted and whilst it is important to take the opportunity to have a more integrated, democratic and inclusive process and to have a fresh approach to rural development, we must not simply start from scratch again which means we repeat the same mistakes as the previous rounds of the RDP.

This strong coalition between Councils, rural organisations and the rural community should lead to a system which will focus on the customer and not on the process, which has unfortunately been too often the case in the past. There is a real opportunity to have a responsive rural programme benefiting all parts of the rural community.

Programme Operation

At the close of the programme we had received and processed the following breakdown of applications and issued Letters of Offer.

Businesses Grant aided To Date

A list of businesses funded to date by North Antrim Leader+has been given and their respective Council areas and type of business/service which they provide.

This breakdown of the individuals and companies assisted proves just how even the spread of money was throughout the North Antrim region, with each of the four Councils receiving a fair share.