Case study - Cumbria Fells and Dales
- The area
- The local partnership
- Bottom up approach to development
- Issues being tackled
- Helping local produce businesses
- Strategic and innovative projects
- Growing Well
- Networking and co-operation
- Are we getting there?
The area
The Cumbria Fells and Dales LEADER+ area contains a population of just over 100,000 people. The area is effectively the southern part of rural Cumbria, covering the whole of the Lake District National Park and the Cumbria portion of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. It stretches from Caldbeck in the north to Cartmel and Kirkby Lonsdale in the south, and from the western dales of the Lake District to Kirkby Stephen on the Pennines and Sedbergh on the Howgill Fells.
It is largely an upland area with a land-use dominated by livestock rearing. It is also an area of high tourism volumes which exploits the area’s well-known scenic beauty.
The local partnership
The Fells and Dales Local Action Group (LAG) is made up of representative organisations from the private, public, and community and voluntary sectors. The decision-making group within the LAG currently consists of local regeneration and environmental bodies, some of the local authorities involved, groups representing farmers and land managers, and local community groups.
The full Local Action Group consists of nearly forty local organisations and meets twice to consider the progress of the programme and to elect the 12 strong Executive Group for the year. 7 of the 12 representatives are from the community and business sectors, 5 from the public bodies.
Bottom up approach to development
The local partners supported the production of a development plan in 2001, based on their analysis of local needs of the area. This formed the basis of an application for LEADER+ funding. The announcement that we had been successful came at the beginning of 2002. The partnership anticipates total programme costs of £4.375m with the EU providing £1.75m, Defra £0.875, and with the remainder coming from the public and private sector locally.
Our aim is to create new sources of employment and income in the area by encouraging an effective and dynamic local produce economy, based on the principles of sustainable development and driven by the actions of local people. The Local Action Group focuses on the LEADER+ theme of “adding value to local products, in particular by facilitating access to markets for small production units via collective actions”.
In order to do this we try to
- Mobilise local people to work together to tackle problems and take joint initiatives
- Create positive links between local product and the local place
- Provide financial and project development support to local private, public and community enterprises.
- Animate and develop activity through the programme team which takes a strategic approach.
We feel that there is a very strong link between the landscape value of the area and its local products, hence our strap-line: Valuing the Landscape, Valuing its Products. This also links with the other LEADER+ theme of making the best use of cultural and local resources.
Issues being tackled
The rural economy of the Fells and Dales relies heavily on agriculture and tourism. These sectors have, in recent years, proved to be very vulnerable with serious decline in farm incomes and a relatively low wage economy in tourism. The FMD epidemic of 2001 impacted particularly severely on Cumbria and vividly indicated the interdependence of farming and tourism.
Amongst major concerns of the local partnerships post-FMD were:
- What to do about low prices for agricultural products
- The issue of succession on hill farms
- The need to help tourism to make a more positive contribution towards sustainability in the area by buying and using local products
- helping visitors and local people to value the special characteristics of the area, especially the role of people involved in managing the land.
The LAG feels that there is considerable potential in trying to develop a greater amount of high quality local product marketing, and to find ways of retaining income in the local area. To do this we use a large part of the programme’s resources to invest in local produce enterprises, to assist with collaborative marketing and by seeking new ways of approaching old problems.
Helping local produce businesses
We use the Local Produce Grant Scheme (LPG) to give assistance to local produce enterprises to carry out projects of a value of less than £20,000. This has proved extremely popular and has supported projects to do with local meats, wool, timber, fish, drink, wool insulation, egg production, gastronomic tours, local food forum, herbal products, drystone walling, willow, ice cream, game - you name it, we’ve probably helped. This scheme has also helped local groups to assess the feasibility of their ideas before proceeding with them. Currently we have supported in excess of 100 projects through this scheme
There is also provision for larger projects (where we have supported or managed fifty other larger projects) examples being: the Rough Fell wool project at Farfield Mill, investment in meat smoking facilities, support to a Herdwick meat marketing scheme in Borrowdale, the Food Hall at Holker, the development of the National Drystone Walling Centre, and an arts, local produce and tourism project involving a sculpture trail on a local working farm.
Strategic and innovative projects
Member organisations in the LAG have been keen to develop programmes which fill gaps in provision, or attempt to tackle particular issues. For instance the area’s organic farmers wished to establish a networking organisation, and LEADER+ has helped them to do so. A wide variety of stakeholders concerned with the future of land management (The National Trust, Lake District National Park, Yorkshire Dales National Park, and the Friends of the Lake District) wanted to explore the possibility of encouraging young people to become trained in fell farming and to appreciate the public goods issues in farming in sensitive environments and prized landscapes.
Rural Futures Dairy Initiative: a group of dairy farmers from the area have established a dairy initiative to produce some new added-value milk products, and to explore their market potential.
Various groups of producers of hill lambs, both on a valley basis or by local breed basis, have worked on the consumer/producer links project to investigate the potential of selling into the area’s tourism industry, and have carried out a detailed demonstration project to explore the supply chain issues involved. In the process they have educated themselves in detail about what is involved in direct marketing.
By working in partnership with an innovative woodland sector programme, Forest Futures (www.cumbriawoodlands.org.uk) , we have been able to assist individual businesses adding value to local timber and achieve some overall awareness raising of Cumbrian timber. A timber products development and marketing officer has been funded. She will be working on analysing the industry in Cumbria for potential and in the wider world for new product ideas and innovative uses of timber. Cumbria produces some good quality timber, but also a deal of thinnings and low quality ‘short wood’. New uses for this would be seen as very beneficial, especially to small woodland owners and owners of derelict coppice. Coppice skills are to be revived through a joint partnership with the Bill Hogarth Memorial Trust, who with our funding, will run an apprenticeship programme.
In order to increase the level of knowledge and understanding about the local landscape, the LAG has supported a major project developing local produce trails. A series of interpretative leaflets exploring the connection between local products and production systems, and the local landscape and environment is being produced in association with local groups and relevant local producers. Examples are, Damson Valleys, Ale Trail, Organic Origins. Others will follow on Cumberland sausage, minerals, traditional breeds, apples, wool products etc.
Growing Well
Growing Well project is attempting to tackle a range of issues with a comprehensive plan of activity. The partners have analysed the following issues
- There is a problem for people with mental health issues in returning to the labour market
- There is a lack of meaningful sheltered work opportunities in rural areas
- There is a lack of locally grown vegetables in the area
- There is a lack of commercial horticultural skill in the area
To tackle all this and maintain a sustainable business holds many challenges. This project will explore the possible social enterprise solutions. A not for profit business will be set up and will operate so as to provide care opportunities paid for by the state, training opportunities paid for by the local college and vegetable and fruit grown for local organic outlets. The revenue from all of this activity, once set up will sustain the project workers, who will initially rely on grant, but gradually reduce that dependence as income streams come on line.
Other interesting partnership projects are Food and Farming Learning Officer, the, Food and Drink Festival, meadow mania (profiting from wildflowers), CTB Chef Apprenticeship Programme, and Feastcookers (for details see www.fellsanddales.org.uk).
Networking and co-operation
Networking and co-operation projects are key aspects of LEADER+. The Fells and Dales has developed partnerships with LAGs in Lozère (France) on the issue of developing greater understanding of land management and its results, with Dubeiner Heide (Germany) exploring modern applications of traditional building techniques; and work with our neighbouring LAG North Pennines on combining a local produce emphasis with their theme of improving the quality of life under the banner ‘Earthright Solutions’. We intend to carry out further work on wool and wool culture with other UK LAGs and undertake further work on food, health and social exclusion.
Are we getting there?
At approximately the half-way point of the programme we have initially earmarked all our resources, and we are making substantial progress towards our targets.
If our work is successful we would expect to see some of the following:
- More farms adding value to their produce as part of their range of activities
- Increased range of non-farm local products
- Improved supply and distribution of local products
- Tourism businesses using local produce
- Tourism businesses using Local Produce Trails as sustainable tourism product
- Community involvement in local produce and local place campaigns/compacts
- Branding schemes using sustainable development principles
- Shows/festivals/events involving local produce
A variety of ways are used to indicate that progress, for example jobs created and safeguarded, workspace created and occupied, new businesses started, new products launched, businesses assisted, members of the public involved, information sources created and sustainable tourist attractions supported. Having committed to projects over 2/3 of our total resources, we are exceeding our full targets in half of the categories, are on target in a third and the remaining sixth we are aiming at directing our remaining resources to achieve.
Taking our main aim, to create a vibrant and sustainable local produce economy, much evidence of success can be seen through the increased promotion of local produce by major supermarkets in the area. The locally owned motorway services at Tebay each have a farm shop and serve local produce. It is this ‘mainstreaming’ of activity that we hope will have a lasting impact.
Cumbrian wool products are again becoming sought after and fine craft cabinet making from local timber has taken off. Quarried slate and dimension stone continues to be a major prized asset of the county and we are developing ideas about renewable energy and traditional building techniques. There are still areas of food to work on, most notably adding value in the dairy industry, but the progress is being made. We are also going to make more of an effort to ensure consumers recognise the strong associations between the product and the environment in which it was produced and live up to the programmes ‘strap line’ - “Valuing the Landscape, Valuing its Products”
Page last modified:
5 February, 2007
Page created: 10 December, 2002