This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
Listen
Euro funds for South of Scotland
21/07/2003
Local projects across the South of Scotland which
promote economic development are to benefit from a further
£2.4million worth of new European grants.
The latest round of European structural funding is
focused on projects that encourage investments in small and
medium sized enterprises (SMEs), support area regeneration
actions, assist with the development of community support
structures and advance tourism potential in local
areas.
Announcing the new South of Scotland grants, Deputy
Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning, Lewis
Macdonald said:
"The further injection of European Funding will benefit
a wide and diverse range of projects providing considerable
additional benefit throughout the area.
"These new approvals include £450,000 to support
Scottish Enterprise Dumfries and Galloway to encourage up
to 50% of SMEs in the region to invest in Broadband
Telecoms Services.
"Broadband can be key to continuing economic success and
I'm sure that businesses across Dumfries and Galloway will
benefit from this award.
"A European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) grant of
over £82,000 has also been awarded to Scottish Enterprise
Borders to support the Scottish Borders Golf Tourism
Initiative, helping to boost this important local industry"
he said.
The South of Scotland programme is also providing
£65,000 to support the establishment of a dedicated
training centre at West Freugh in Wigtownshire and will
focus initially on those being made redundant at the
site.
Other awards include £150,000 to support the
establishment of a dedicated, multi-skilled team whose
focus will be the diversity of the economic base and to
raise the high growth investment profile of the western
part of the South of Scotland programme area.
In addition over £22,000 will be provided to Scottish
Borders Council for their Social Enterprise Initiative
which will fund seminars and network events to raise
awareness and build capacity in social economy
organisations to become economically viable social
enterprises.
The South of Scotland Objective 2 Programme 2000-2006
was approved in principle by the European Commission in
November 2000. It is worth €73 m (£50m approximately) over
the period. The figure includes transition funds for the
Tweeddale area of the Borders which is the only part of the
South of Scotland area that lost full status from the
previous Objective 5b programme which ran from
1994-1999
The 6
th round of awards to the programme takes the
total amount of ERDF provided to date to almost £24.1
million.
Further details of the projects approval can be obtained
from the South of Scotland European Partnership's offices
in Dumfries Tel. 01387 251360 and in Selkirk Tel. 01750
725104.