16 North East Region (NER)
North East Region
The region covers 5 council areas in the North East of Northern Ireland. It has a rural population of approximately 95,000 and covers a geographical area of about 2,300 sq km. It has an extensive coastline with Scotland being only 17km distant at the nearest point. The principal businesses in the rural areas are agriculture - sheep farming in the uplands area, with beef and dairy cattle in the lowland areas, and tourism with the Giants Causeway being a World Heritage Centre attracting over 800,000 visitors per year. The area also contains the only inhabited island in Northern Ireland (Rathlin pop 110).
NER LAG
Established early 2009, but history of Leader in area since 1992 2 Boards (45 members), mix of community and council representatives £13.2m (€16m budget), 8 staff 1000 applications, 350 grant offers Main areas of activity: Farm diversification, Small Business Support, Tourism initiatives, Village Renewal, Support for Rural services and Heritage support
Co-operation Initiatives NER sees co-operation as a really important part of its strategy and has found it an excellent tool for introducing innovation into its mainstream programme. NER undertook several initial projects, which resulted in two full cooperation projects. Village Links with a LAG in the Republic of Ireland, which involved a total of 11 villages working together on joint initiatives. Innovative Village which involves Finnish and Estonian partners.