Rural Renaissance
Evaluation of the South West Rural Renaissance Initiative
Rural Renaissance is one of South West RDA's main rural regeneration initiatives and is a delegated investment programme for economic development projects in rural areas in the South West. It has been delivered through eight partnerships formed from public, private and voluntary sector members, with a total RDA spend of £18m. In 2005 the Rural Renaissance funding was complemented by over £10m of Defra funds for “Modernising Rural Delivery”.
By the end of 2007, Rural Renaissance and Modernising Rural Delivery had supported investment of over £43m in the rural areas of the South West and helped to create over 600 jobs.
Roger Tym & Partners helped to establish these figures and provided an in-depth evaluation of the process and impacts achieved by the initiatives. With a further year to run, the final out-turn would be even greater.
The evaluation involved working closely with the eight sub-regional partnerships, and sample surveys of funded projects and their beneficiaries. We developed evaluation techniques including construction of baseline data sets, establishing a relevant “reference case” and assessment of “additionality” – particularly challenging given the dispersed and diverse nature of the supported projects, and the variety of approaches adopted by different partnerships.
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