The Community Transport Association (CTA) and the Plunkett Foundation have announced a new three year Social Enterprise Rural Community Transport Development Fund. The new fund will offer grant/loan packages to eight organisations around England to enable them to significantly grow their contract income. The funding package will be backed up by a range of training, development and networking support provided by the CTA and Plunkett over the life of the programme. The funding, totalling almost £1 million, will be input by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the Department for Transport, the Commission for Rural Communities and Futurebuilders England. Further information on the programme will be announced in early November.
Norman Rides has been appointed by the CTA as the Rural Social Enterprise Programme Manager to manage and administer the new development fund and the associated support programme. Norman will take up the new post in September 2009 and brings a wealth of experience from the social enterprise sector to the role.
Keith Halstead, Chief Executive, of the CTA said “We are absolutely delighted to have secured the funding for this important new programme and believe that it will make a lasting difference to the sustainability of rural community transport services in England”. The funding will allow the successful applicants to establish staff posts to build up contract income in order to reduce their dependence on grant funding over the long term.
Peter Cleasby, Vice-Chairman of the Plunkett Foundation, added: "Social enterprises are the 21st century model for enabling rural communities to provide and receive the services that they need, where both the public and commercial sectors are failing them. This programme is a major boost to community-owned sustainable rural transport."
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For press enquiries, please contact Ewan Jones at CTA on 0161-351 1475 or email ewan@ctauk.org.
The CTA is a UK wide charity giving voice and providing leadership, learning and enterprise support to member organisations across the third sector, delivering innovative and flexible transport solutions to achieve social change. Further information at www.ctauk.org.
The Plunkett Foundation promotes and supports community-ownership, co-operatives and social enterprises in rural communities in the UK and internationally. It provides support, networks and knowledge to help rural communities to be aware of, understand and implement practical solutions to the challenges that they are facing. Further information at www.plunkett.co.uk.
Voluntary and community transport exists to meet the travel and social needs of people to whom these would otherwise be denied because of age, disability, location etc. It provides accessible and affordable transport to achieve social inclusion.
The Social Enterprise Development Programme flows from original research funded by the Department for Transport and carried out by CTA and Plunkett. The final research report is available here.