GREEN CAMPAIGNERS SET UP REJUVENATION TEAM
Staff have now
been appointed for a national project in Halifax
which aims to find new ways to rejuvenate
local economies.
The Forum for
the Future, a charity funded by the country's
leading green campaigners, has set up
its regional office at Dean
Clough Business Park at a cost of #220,000.
Working closely
with Calderdale Council, the forum will study the
best ways of creating jobs and prosperity
throughout the UK and
abroad.
The council's
Labour leader Coun. Pam Warhurst said it was
tremendous for Calderdale to be chosen
as the base for the project
which would help bring the area widespread
recognition and benefits.
Project officers
Mr. Les Newby, of Leicester, and Ms. Helen
Hudson, of Rochdale, will begin their
work next month.
According to
the forum's executive director, Mr. Rupert Howes,
modern economic policy is failing to tackle
the needs of areas like
Calderdale which have seen a dramatic
decline in traditional
industries such as textiles and engineering.
"While service
sector jobs have increased, West Yorkshire still
suffers from a persistent level of long-term
unemployment, especially
among young people in inner cities," said
Mr. Howes.
"conventional
development policies cannot possibly reach all
these people and at the same time opportunities
to create wealth and
jobs in the local economy continue to
go begging.
"This project
is designed to help build up local economies in a
sustainable and environmentally responsible
way which employs the
people and resources that the global market
has bypassed."
One of the reasons
the forum has chosen to come to Calderdale has
been success of the pioneering Local Exchange
Trading System LETS
which involves purchases being paid for
by "favours" rather than
money.
Recycling projects,
credit unions, community transport and
agriculture schemes, and cooperative businesses
are
some of the other
ways to which more and more people are
turning to create wealth.
"Inevitably,
a lot of this is pretty hit and miss and many
schemes are very short=lived or seriously
under performing," said Mr.
Howes.
"It needs a coherent
strategy for reinforcing all the voluntary
enthusiasm and community enterprise which
underpins so much local
economic activity."
The officers
at Dean Clough will collect and analyse national and
international information about good practice
for economic development
and produce a final report at the end
of three years.
"This will set
out both a fully-fledged model and an operational
tool-kit for the sustainable reinvigoration
of local economies."
Kirklees and
Wakefield Councils, charitable trusts and businesses
are also backing the project which is
headed by one of the country's
best known environmentalists, Mr. Jonathan
Porritt.