Towns & Villages urged to participate in National €20 million competitive development funding process for Rural County Carlow.

Press Release for Immediate Release – 4th May 2017

Towns & Villages urged to participate in National €20 million competitive development funding process for Rural County Carlow.

Deputy Chief Executive of Carlow County Council , Dan Mc Inerney is calling on communities to attend the upcoming Town & Village Scheme Public Meeting which will be hosted on 16th May 2017 @ 7.30pm in Lord Bagenal Hotel , Leighlinbridge , County Carlow in order to facilitate the development of applications for County Carlow under the latest Town & Village Scheme for 2017.

The Town and Village Renewal Scheme is an initiative under the Government’s Action Plan for Rural Development, Realizing our Rural Potential, and is part of a package of national and local support measures to rejuvenate rural towns and villages throughout Ireland. A National Fund of €20m has been made available on a competitive basis for projects developed at local level.

Speaking about the scheme Mc Inerney said “ Towns and Village across County Carlow have fantastic communities made up of a variety of interests from business to community and its essential that we work together in order to ensure that County Carlow performs well in attracting investment in strategic projects for the County under this scheme”. Mc Inerney continued to say that “Carlow County Council has put in place a project team to support communities in this process and the first stage is a community engagement event being facilitated by the project team to develop expressions of interest for the programme”.

Explaining the scheme, Kieran Comerford , Head of Enterprise with Carlow County Council’s – Local Enterprise Office said “this year the government has introduced a competitive process and we are keen for County Carlow to perform well in this process and by facilitating a workshop for a variety of interests across County Carlow will ensure that we lay appropriate foundations for suitable projects to be developed”. Comerford concluded by saying “that following an expression of interest stage selected project will be developed to full application by the Council in partnership with communities ranging in investment from €20,000 to €200,000”.

For further information e-mail enterprise@carlowcoco.ie or call 059/9129783

Notes to Editor:

The Town and Village Renewal Scheme is an initiative under the Government’s Action Plan for Rural Development, Realizing our Rural Potential, and is part of a package of national and local support measures to rejuvenate rural towns and villages throughout Ireland. A National Fund of €20m will be made available on a competitive basis for projects developed at local level.

Expressions of Interests are invited from communities for the scheme and in order to facilitate and support communities, Carlow County Council will host a public meeting on 16th May 2017 @ 7.30pm in the Lord Bagenal Hotel , Leighlinbridge , County Carlow. 

In order to assist with the application process communities are asked to gather representatives from business and community interests to attend this meeting. The workshop will give the background to the scheme and also outline the competitive process for 2017 and give guidance for the expression of interest process. The closing date for expressions of interest from communities will be close of business on 22nd May 2017. It is essential that communities attend this workshop in order to develop project proposals suitable for evaluation for the proposed fund.

This scheme is open to rural locations in County Carlow and excludes Carlow Town.