ASSET (Action to Strengthen Small European Towns)
Project Description
INTRODUCTION
The project was initiated at an ECOVAST Conference in Retz, Austria in November 2005. Since then the position of Small Towns in European policy has been highlighted at groupings of International NGOs of the Council of Europe, and at conferences and seminars in Austria, Croatia, Finland, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and the UK.
Research is in progress on the challenges facing Small Towns and the ways in which they are seeking and receiving support from national and regional agencies.
The Organising Group of ASSET partners has prepared the way for concerted action:
Background
1. The small towns of Europe are a massive asset for the people, the heritage and the economies of the continent. They provide a focus of social, cultural and economic life in their sub-regions. They interact with the villages in their surrounding areas, and with larger towns and cities. They influence and react with their surrounding landscape (some with their seascape).
They vary greatly in their origin, age and character, and embody a local distinctiveness that is a vital part of the European heritage.
As well as the heritage of buildings and landscape, the people of the towns are themselves an asset. Asset-based community development recognises assets as five ‘capitals’:
Natural capital and also human, social, manufactured and financial capital.
(ASSET BASED TOOLS AND APPROACHES FOR SUSTAINABLE RURAL AREAS A Forum for the Future Report for Carnegie UK Trust Dr Rhys Evans http://www.forumforthefuture.org.uk )
2. However, throughout Europe, small towns face severe problems, challenges and opportunities. Many have lost, or are losing, functions to the larger cities, as part of the processes of globalisation and centralisation. Loss of services and businesses within villages and small towns particularly affect the disadvantaged and those who are not able to drive cars (e.g. young, old, disabled). In some towns, commercial centres are losing vitality because of the creation of out-of-town shopping and service centres. In others that are a success in attracting shoppers and visitors, narrow streets and public spaces are often blighted by traffic or by excessive car parking.
3. There are good examples where the people of some small towns and villages have taken the initiative to assess their strengths and weaknesses and to promote a vision of a sustainable future, seeking assistance from municipalities, regions and agencies. Many other small communities lack the skills and capacity to take such action and need support from larger municipalities, regions, governments and NGOs.
4. In the face of these forces, there is a strong and widespread concern to revive the small towns, to protect and find new life for their remarkable heritage and to strengthen their economies. This effort falls within the broader context of policies within and beyond the European Union; and can call upon programmes of regional development, rural development, spatial planning and other sectoral activities.
5. However, no major European programme has focused on small towns, in their own right. They are, in this sense, a hidden asset. In some countries, government agencies or regional councils have focused on small towns, providing advice, finance and other support and encouraging networking and exchange of good practice between towns. Some national networks of small or market towns exist, such as Action for Market Towns in England, and others such as the Association of Croatian Towns, the association of towns in eastern Alentejo, Portugal and the Polish Union of Small Towns (Unia Miasteczek Polskich). Equivalent bodies to the Local Government Association (England and Wales) that exist in other member states will be important to such networks. At European level, there are some formal networks of towns with special interests, such as RECEVIN (wine towns) and Citta Slow.
6. However, there has been no significant effort, at European level, to link these different efforts and to gain the benefit of exchange of ideas and good practice between those agencies and organisations that wish to support the strengthening of small towns throughout Europe.
Addressing The Need
7. In an effort to fill that gap, ECOVAST and SEEDA joined with the Regional Council of Niederösterreich to sponsor, at Retz in Austria in November 2005, a European Conference on ‘Small Rural Towns’. This three-day event attracted 85 delegates from 30 regions and 12 countries.
After intensive discussion, and description of initiatives in many countries, the Conference agreed that a project should be launched to promote co-operation, and exchange of good practice, between governmental and other agencies throughout Europe who offer support to small towns.
8. ECOVAST and APURE (l'association pour les Universités Rurales Européennes), The South East of England Regional Development Agency (SEEDA), Yorkshire Forward (Regional Development Agency, England) as main partners, with the support of The Commission for Rural Communities (CRC) England) and MONTE, ACE - Desenvolvimento Alentejo Central, Portugal, have therefore taken the initiative in making progress on that project, and are supported in doing so by other potential partners including:
And other interested parties include:
In October 2007, at Samobor, Croatia an ECOVAST conference SMALL EUROPEAN TOWNS – THEIR ROLE IN RURAL DEVELOPMENT AND HERITAGE PROTECTION, at which 72 people from 8 countries attended, consensus was reached on the Samobor Declaration (Annex E).
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