A bottom-up approach to regeneration is vital for people living in rural areas in the UK who are suffering real economic hardship in the 2009 recession.
Only by taking a bottom-up approach to UK regeneration can it be ensured that the large amounts of money set aside for economic regeneration and given in regeneration grants by Government bodies genuinely reaches those facing economic hardship.
Regeneration spending must have a direct impact on those who can’t pay their bills and buy their kids Birthday presents. Their poverty is real and it hurts. Each day that passes without help is another day of pain. At all costs, regeneration grant moneys must not be kept at macro-economic levels and spent on consultants and new office buildings.
My view is simple. Economic regeneration starts with the individual people in most need – who else?
Of course, it is often easier for Local Authorities to spend regeneration moneys in ways that are unlikely to be questioned, whether they actually achieve genuine results for those in need or not.
It is easier to set up expensive satellite small business help offices ‘to get closer to the needy’ than it is to visit second-hand car salesmen in their kitchens to discuss how they can get a better pitch to sell their old bangers instead of selling them on the streets.
It is easier to give £50,000 to consultants to re-analyse the well known statistics of the local rural economic demographic profile than it is to sit down in the living room of the single parent mother who needs a decent marketing plan to better make a living selling second-hand baby clothing on eBay.
In a dark street, it is easier to look for dropped keys where the light is shining than to fumble around where it is difficult to see.
A list of businesses where the light is shining gets no further than the High Street and the well known guest houses and hotels.
Fumbling around in the dark is all about getting to the home-based businesses or people who would be willing to give a home-based business a try if they knew how.
Bottom-up regeneration starts by getting the regeneration money directly to these people.
And if those holding the purse-strings in Local Government can’t find them – or don’t want to be bothered to find them – they should hand back the regeneration grant money to be spent by those who can.
The bottom-up approach to rural economic regeneration is not an alternative way, it is the only honest way to fight the 2009 recession and achieve rural regeneration.
Bye for now
Rob
