Rural Community Action

Launched on the 26th November 2002, Rural Community Action is a Welsh Assembly Government funded programme that operates across the whole of Rural Wales covering the nine predominantly rural local authorities (phase 1) and the rural wards of Flintshire, Wrexham and the Vale of Glamorgan.

The programme was developed to address one of the main priorities of the Welsh Assembly Government and that is:

"To develop communities where people want to live, work and visit and where there is access to economic opportunity and reward, a pleasant and safe environment and active social and community networks".

The programme as originally designed, consists of two elements:

• Element 1 is a grant scheme to support area based strategic RCA Partnerships across rural Wales to address community capacity building needs and to empower local communities.
• Element 2 is a grant scheme to support individual projects put forward by the Rural Community Action Partnerships - due to resource pressures, funding for this element has not been forthcoming.

The main target groups for the programme are:

• Micro and small businesses
• Tourism
• Farm business development
• Access to services
• Access to funding sources
• The under-employed
• Welsh speaking communities
• Women
• Young people
• Elderly people
• The rural environment

Funding

This has been entirely provided by the Welsh Assembly Government with £1.8m per year allocated to the programme for each financial year from 2003/04 to 2005/06.  Funding for 2006/07 has been agreed at the same level.  Funding for future years will be considered during this year's Spending Review. 

Benefits of the RCA Application Process:

• Simple
• Quick
• Flexible
• Supportive
• Covering Rural Denbighshire