12th bi-annual Rural Conference: Planning for Sustainable Rural Communities in Leicestershire - The Six to Fix

The LRP's 12th bi-annual Rural Conference was held on Friday 19th June 2009 at Hothorpe Hall, nr Theddingworth.

(Pictured from left to right are some of the members of the morning Q & A panel, Geoff Stevens, Lesley Pendleton, Andrew Morgan, Stuart Burgess and David Hughes.)

At our Conference in 2007 we launched the new Leicestershire Rural Strategy, 2007-14 and welcomed Lord Haskins as our keynote speaker. This year we were very pleased that Dr. Stuart Burgess, Rural Advocate and Chairman of the Commission for Rural Communities (CRC), gave our keynote address.

At the request of the Prime Minister, Dr. Burgess led an inquiry into the necessary interventions required to enable rural areas to release their economic potential. This important report, together with the Government's response, can be found on the Commission for Rural Communities' website.

We were also very grateful to Andrew Morgan, Skills and Communities Director at emda, who presented on the work that emda, as the Regional Development Agengy, lead on to support rural businesses. This includes contracting the work of Business Link and the Rural Development Programme for England, 2007-13.

Taking the CRC's lead this year's Conference was framed around Planning for Sustainable Communities? - The big picture. Within this the CRC has identified the Six to Fix - six policy arenas where specific changes would contribute most to making rural communities more sustainable. The Six to Fix include;

• Rural economy
• Affordable rural housing
• Rural services in decline
• Rural transport
• Climate change and the environment
• Cohesive, empowered and active communities [workshop will focus on Quality Parish Council scheme]

We would like to thank all those individuals, partner organisations and attendees who made our rural conference such a success. With over 120 attendees meant that we had useful and lively discussion within our workshop sessions. We will now consider those issues raised and feed these into the on-going development of our programme.

The conference programme and all presentation slide, including the workshops, are available below.

If you have any queries about the conference please contact Jonathan Clarkson (0116 305 8117)