PROJECT IDEA Project Name / To be defined with the partnership Economy/Food/Tourism Contact / Elodie JACQ, Sustainable Development Department / Organisation / Alençon Urban Community / Address / : City Hall / Sustainable Development Department / CS 50362 61014 Alençon cedex Telephone number / +33 (0)2 33 32 40 37 E-mail / elodie.jacq@ville-alencon.fr Specific Objective / 3.1 - Realise the potential of the common natural and cultural assets to deliver innovative and sustainable growth Summary description of the project idea / The Alencon Urban Community took part in the Interreg IVA DEAL project (Promoting Economic Development through Local Food 2013-2015) whose aim was produce, sell, buy and eat local to foster the sustainable economic development of our communities.
Considerable progress and concrete realizations have been led to DEAL project. It brought stature, local credibility, as well as strong local partnerships and international experience. Initiated evolutions and first concrete results are certain but still delicate. In order not to lose the benefits of this work, and to be sure everyone can adapt, some actions have to be continued. The idea is to revitalize them through a new approach, a new project and new partnerships. The aim of the project is to highlight local attractive features : high quality agriculture, culinary and gastronomic art. The idea is to give an answer to a lack of professional structuring offers, clearly identified in these fields. To reach that point, it s not only necessary to take care of evolutions into existing organisms, but also to work on the food supply chain and ensure the diffusion of knowledge and local skills. That will also be realized through the creation of new activities or new touristic, economic and educative offers. A complementary aspect of the project aims to ensure an access to high quality and fresh products for precarious people, accentuating impacts of the diet on the health.
Examples of concrete actions / Considered plan : evolutive working base according to interested partners Line 1 : Enhance the attractiveness of the territories (agricultural/entrepreneurial/touristic) o Create or develop products and touristic offers to highlight skills and gastronomic culture (recipe book, smartphone application, sightseeing stays for different type of people ) o Create or develop places for offer and demand meetings (events, open-air markets, specialized commercial meetings ) Make territory more attractive for visitors and inhabitants Line 2 : Sectors and logistic : organization of environmentally and economically efficient logistic chains o Federate and coordinate economic actors to structure local sectors o Study and accompany the creation/improvement of a local supply chain (local food hub and/or transformation tool) o Stimulate creation of new agricultural activities using short supply chain (land property reserve, land property observatory, help for installation and transmission ) Make easier and stimulate new economic activities and/or environmental improvements
Line 3 : Fight against precarity and food exclusion : link between agriculturale, social and health o Train and inform (food practices, quality of products, organization, impact on health, budget) o Accompany social collective actions (shared vegetable gardens, actions in enterprises, solidarity based funding of initiatives) Reduce food, health and social inequalities Minimal indicators the project has to answer - Increase or keep number of visitors in the eligible area - Number of innovating services/products created
Changes that the project will contribute to : - Enhance the area attractiveness for enterprises and inhabitants (keep or increase the number of enterprises and inhabitants) - Keep or increase the tourists number in the area - Introduce an environmental dimension into distribution/produce transformation network - Reduce food precarity Cross border added value : - Experience sharing between French and English partners - Stature of the economic development, partnerships and twinning French/English in order to give an international size to commercial offers, ensuring a good readibility thanks a common presentation shape. - Mutual experience benefits between partners (hub, health approach, open-air market approach ) Capitalisation on previous initiatives : - Use of DEAL project experience (logistic approach, awareness/training actions) and use of some deliverables - Other experiences in analysis
Sustainability : - Spreading of experience through each partner local network - Initiatives launch (springboard/pilot role) with jobs creation, stage of test then transfer to independent enterprises (new market opening) Partners (with their geographical areas) already involved in the project idea / Alençon Urban Community (Lower-Normandy) as lead partner / First contacts with / : - New Forest District Council - FRCIVAM de Bretagne - Prodicoop Caen - Association Terre de Liens Normandie Potential partners sought (skills wanted) : - Organisms able to ensure a coordination/an activation of different types of actors : Community, Associations, Consular chambers - Economic actors in field of tourism, small agrifood businesses, logistic
Considered reverse planning : - Nov. 2015 to Feb. 2016 : partners search, contacts, exchanges (individuals then collective), identification of projects combinations, action lines decisions. Partnership definition and first budget draft. Answer to phase 1 application call : March 2016 (selection committee in June) If selection in phase 1 : - June to Dec. 2016 : detailed exchanges between partners. Detailed definition of partnership and individuel actions. Project, action planning and detailed budget drawing-up. Individual and collective meetings : for this phase, partnership has available a fixed rate payment of 30,000 (staff costs for preparation, meetings, travels) Project implementation : March 2017 to June 2020 Estimated project cost / To be define with the partnership
Other comments : We consider a quite small partnership (6-8 partners max), distributed all along the eligible area. Each partner has to think of the project in link with a local coordination/network (directly made or external service), in order to ensure diffusion and transferability of the project actions. We want to insist on many exchanges between France/UK (physically and/or virtually), using groups of 2 or 3 partners per action and/or role as a godfather/twinning in order to stimulate relations and make action parallelism. Has a programme facilitator from the InterregVA FCE Joint Technical Secretariat provided advice to the project applicant? / Yes / If yes, facilitator s name / Judith de SAINT LAURENT Lower Normandy FCE Programme Facilitator Joint Secretariat judith.de.saint.laurent@norfolk.gov.uk Mob : +44 (0) 7 500 999 527 Fixe: +33 (0)2 31 06 97 71