Isle of Wight Rural Priorities Project

We have started an exercise to produce an outline rural priorities paper in which evidence of need and rationales are provided that lead to Island rural priorities being suggested. We are working on this project together with partners from the Isle of Wight Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the Isle of Wight Rural Community Council and SEEDA.

Differentiating between local rural issues and Island-wide issues has always been difficult and of course there is significant overlap. However certain issues, while existing Island-wide are sometimes different in nature in rural areas, some issues are more keenly felt in rural areas and others while being similar issues require different solutions in rural areas.

The evidence, rationales and suggested rural priorities are being collated under the broad headings used in the national ‘State of the Countryside’ reports; Living in the Countryside, Economic Well-being and Land and Environment.

This paper will be used to feed into rural funding applications such as Leader+ and the Rural Access to Services Programme in 2008, Island wide strategies such as the Sustainable Community Strategy and also hopefully support the more regular consideration of rural issues by key partnership groups such as the Children’s Trust and individual organisations and departments in their delivery of services. The definition of rural being used is areas under 10,000 residents.