Yorkshire Forward: Settle and the Three Peaks
Erskine completed a project with Settle and District Chamber of Trade, Craven District Council and the local community to create a three year business development package for Settle and the Three Peaks area following the devastating effect of Foot and Mouth Disease.
Erskine developed a project summary which was… ‘To create an achievable three year business development action plan taking into account environmental and community issues which encourages entrepreneurialism & enterprise especially in the young, delivers the aspirations of existing businesses and attracts compatible business migrants to the area’
During the project we:
- met with the vast majority of the interested parties that have any input or influence in the area which numbered over one hundred organisations and two hundred and eighteen people
- read and assimilated the over thirty reports relating to market towns and all aspects of the rural economy
- assimilated the ethos of the area, established what they perceive it to be and what they wanted out of it
- created genuine community and business buy-in to the project.
- set up coherent channels of communication between the individuals, groups and organisations
- produced a response to the Yorkshire Forward consultation paper on tourism
- were instrumental in the formation of creative & digital and food & drink clusters for the area
- heavily publicised the project with over twenty articles appearing in local and regional press
The results were a highly creative action plan which was so successful that:
- the entire document was included by Craven District Council for funding in the North Yorkshire Sub Regional Action Plan
- Settle and its surrounding hinterland was one of the first market towns in Yorkshire to benefit from Yorkshire Forward’s Renaissance Market Towns status.
Tony Price: Chairman of the Settle & District Chamber of Trade‘The document that you produced - turning opportunities into action - has focused the minds and interpreted the aspirations of the business community, and we believe the community as a whole, into an actionable programme for the sustainable regeneration of the area’.
Project leader
