LEADER grant
To help us to pay for our Wind Turbine we decided to approach LEADER,
who can provide European Grant Funding.
We had to write a Business plan and fill out a very lengthy ‘Expression
of Interest’ form.
LEADER (http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/index_en.htm ) provides European grant funding for the local rural economies of Bolsover and North East Derbyshire. Projects have ranged from boarding kennels to a new hotel, from vets to holiday lets. All projects were
granted funding in order to create new job opportunities, help small busiesses
develop, and to encourage tourists to the North Derbyshire area, which was our
remit.
In our business plan, we had to state our need of the wind turbine …
“Our business comprises 2 high quality holiday cottages, graded 5 star by
VisitBritain and holding the Green Tourism Business Scheme Silver award. We
sleep 16 people, mostly large family groups (A, B, C1’s) and we are 95%
occupied throughout the year. This is a niche market with little competition in
N.E. Derbyshire and brings some 800 visitors to the district annually; mostly
high spending visitors!
Over the past 3 years our energy costs have tripled. We rely upon fuel oil and
electricity. Despite energy conservation measures (insulation/low energy bulbs
etc) we now find that from October until March the business is running at a
substantial loss (excepting Christmas and New Year). This is the period when
energy costs go through the roof and income is greatly reduced. Our winter
prices are limited by competition with other large cottages, mostly in the
South of England, which do not suffer from our extreme climate and have lower
heating costs.
Unless we can reduce energy costs, and restore profitability, we shall
be forced to close the cottages between mid October & March. This will
reduce the number of visitors that we bring to the district by around 300 per
year and will result in the loss of 2 housekeeping jobs (part time) in the
winter months.”
We were successful!
