Rural Futures
What is Rural Futures?
The main aim of the Rural Futures programme, which is funded by the National Lottery Community Fund, is to support communities to develop their own ideas to tackle some of the challenges faced in rural areas and to make the most of local opportunities – whether that’s the landscape, history of the area, or the skills, knowledge and energy of residents.
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Rural Futures is supporting 14 communities across rural Wales. The six year programme started in 2017 and runs in parallel to the National Lottery Community Fund’s wider Rural Programme.
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Llannerch-y-medd and Llanfechell are among the communities involved in the programme since 2017, with Bryngwran and Gwalchmai having joined in 2020.
Our work is led by the needs and aspirations of the communities we support. We work with community members and stakeholders to help identify the root causes of issues and how best to create suitable solutions. This can include helping them to map local assets and look at how they can use them to their full potential to help with issues in their area. We want to help communities make sense of and develop responses to rural issues, through engaging and working closely with them. We aim to add value to the work local organisations and councils are already doing and think about how we can maximise and match the resources available.
Ring fenced funding is available under the wider NLCF Rural Programme for each community, along with micro grants to help communities develop and test ideas. The LlanNI website is funded via one of these micro grants.
The Delivery Team
Rural Futures is delivered collectively by Severn Wye and BRO Partnership.
Severn Wye is an independent charity and not-for-profit company with a vision of developing sustainable, resilient local communities. BRO Partnership (BRO) specialises in all aspects of sustainable development and placemaking including community engagement and empowerment and natural resource management.
Llannerch-y-medd
The designated officer working with the Llannerch-y-medd community is Adrian Roberts (Severn Wye). You may recall Adrian from the Story Studio event which was held at the Community Hall in January 2019. Since then, a hard-working band of local volunteers has been meeting to drive the project forward.
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A number of project ideas were put forward for consideration, but following discussions with the National Lottery, the three ideas that best fitted the Rural Futures guidelines were:
· The creation of a community hub / workshop / repair centre,
· A village planters project, encouraging local residents to learn how to build and maintain them, and
· Further development of the Llannerch-y-medd Village Website, to incorporate elements that the residents wish to see.
We’ve now reached a stage whereby Grŵp LlanNi Cyf. is officially registered as a Private Company Limited by Guarantee, and it is ideally placed to apply for the main Rural Futures grant that is available to develop the projects that have been identified.
However, for an application to be successful, more input and support is needed from the community itself. The Lottery have a mantra of “People in the Lead” and that’s exactly what we are looking for!
Please take this opportunity to support Grŵp LlanNi Cyf and help make these proposed ideas become a reality.