Rural Advocacy and Influence

Since our creation in 1923, a key part of the work of the Rural Community Council has been to provide a “rural voice.”

Today, this means taking evidence from our work in communities across Kent and Medway to help influence those who set policy, allocate budgets or who are looking to encourage new ways of working. To this end we represent Kent’s rural communities on almost 30 partnerships, respond to a range of consultation documents and attempt to obtain media coverage for a range of positive examples of community action each year. The guiding principle of this work is that nobody should be disadvantaged simply because they live or work in a rural community

Most of our rural influencing work takes place within Kent and Medway – however we are members of both regional and national bodies that can use our evidence to help affect decisions at those levels. Notably we are part of SERCC (South East Rural Community Councils), which works closely with such bodies as the Government Office for the South East and the South East of England Regional Development Agency, and ACRE (Action with Communities in Rural England.)

ACRE works closely with the Commission for Rural Communities, a number of government departments (particularly Defra), the National Association of Local Councils (NALC) and a range of national Voluntary & Community Sector organisations.

Examples of the external partnerships we have representation on include:

• Kent & Medway Rural Access to Services Partnership
• Kent Community Alliance of Networks
• Kent Community Development Managers group
• Kent Downs AONB Joint Advisory Committee
• Kent Downs & Marshes Leader Local Action Group
• Kent Infrastructure Consortium
• Kent Partnership Support Group
• Kent Rural Board
• Kent Rural Towns Group
• Maidstone Local Strategic Partnership
• Rural Forum South East
• Tunbridge Wells Together
• West Kent Leader Local Action Group

Examples of recent consultations and policy-shaping events we have given evidence to include:

• Ashford’s Future (rural economy workshop)
• Audit Commission review of Regeneration (consultation)
• Commission for Rural Communities ‘Rural Places – Market Towns’ consultation)
• Dover Local Development Framework (consultation)
• East Kent Community Strategy (consultation)
• Garden of England Workshop – The Growth Agenda for Kent (workshop)
• Kent County Council Regeneration Strategy (consultation)
• Kent Cultural Summit (conference)
• Kent Voluntary Sector Conference (conference)
• Matthew Taylor Review on Rural Economy and Affordable Housing (workshop)
• Network Rail Kent Route Utilisation Strategy (consultation)
• Planning Policy Statement 4 (consultation)
• Post Office Network Change Programme (consultation)

In return, ‘rural advocacy and influence’ work helps inform our day-to-day support to community groups, local councils and micro-businesses across Kent and Medway.

For more information on the above, please contact us on info@ruralkent.org.uk