RURAL businesses attending this year’s Great Yorkshire Show are being urged to visit the Yorkshire Forward stand to find out how they can get a share of the £63m available over a six year period through the Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE).

RDPE, which is jointly funded by Defra and the European Union and managed by Yorkshire Forward, can be accessed by rural businesses through a number of programmes which will be outlined at the show.

Yorkshire Forward’s rural business advisors will be on hand each day of the show (14 -16 July) at Stand 621 to discuss the different RDPE programmes available, the criteria for each and offer help with applications.

The RDPE programme includes:

• The Rural Enterprise Investment Programme offers grants starting from £25,000 and is available to rural businesses wanting to grow and become more productive, including tourism, forestry and farm diversification businesses and businesses that process and add value to agricultural produce.
• The Rural Business Support Programme, run by Business Link Yorkshire, aims to assist new and existing rural micro-enterprises, and farm diversification enterprises through grants of up to £25,000 and up to 50 per cent of the total project cost.
• The Rural Retail Support Programme provides specialist support and advice to sole traders of established and new businesses that provide an essential retail service to a rural community, to diversify and add to the services they offer.
• The Land Skills Programme improves the skills of the region’s agricultural, horticultural and forestry sectors by improving their competitiveness; efficiency and profitability by ensuring employees have the right skills and knowledge through a range of activities.
• The Farm Resource Efficiency Programme helps farmers improve their overall economic performance of their holdings whilst improving their environment credentials. Grants aim to help farmers invest in new technologies by providing up to 40 per cent of equipment costs to a maximum of £25,000 per business.

Yorkshire Forward’s Andy Tordoff, commented; “RDPE aims to ensure rural areas remain vibrant and diverse and improve the quality of life and environment. What we are trying to make clear at this year’s show, is that RDPE is not as complex as people think and we are working hard with our partners to help make it as simple as possible for Yorkshire and Humber’s rural businesses to take advantage of it.”