Sustainable Dales Communities - supporting the sustainable development of local communities by developing initiatives which significantly strengthen proven approaches and/or adopt innovative approaches to service retention and new service creation which stimulate enterprise and encourage income generation.

Strategic priorities (SP) to be addressed under objective one:

• SP 1: To increase the level of collaborative activity amongst farmers, woodland owners, moorland managers and other land managers.
• SP 2: Providing access to services including Post Offices, Rural Shops & Broadband
• SP 3: To increase the amount of diversified (non-agricultural) activity within farming households
• SP 4: Making best use of existing assets ie community buildings

Examples of projects/initiatives:

• Encourage collective marketing
  • Weardale Quality Meat development - business planning, capital investment, development of deliveries, coordination, packaging and processing.
  • Collective purchasing i.e. utilities
• Community Supported Agriculture - Wolsingham CSA Project
• North Pennines Food Project- routes to market, access to kitchens, virtual academy, food festivals.
• 'Transition Town' and low carbon community projects
• Development of sustainable Social Enterprises to provide services i.e. Childcare, etc.
• Transform existing assets ie Village Halls into multi use facilities