On Thursday (June 23) you will have the opportunity to vote in the referendum on whether the UK leaves or stays as part of the European Union (EU).
It’s a decision that will affect you, your friends, and family for decades to come.
With this in mind Armagh I set about to get the numbers on just how much money has been pumped into our council area since 2010.
We are not saying Vote In or Vote Out, just delivering the facts.
We can reveal that before the inception of the ABC ‘super-council’, the former Armagh City Council received approximately £4.5m in EU funding. These figures are from 2010 until 2015.
The present Armagh Banbridge & Craigavon Borough Council is currently awaiting on the outcome of two major grants totalling £805,500 for Maghery Country Park and Dromore Viaduct Abseiling projects. The current status on those: awaiting approval.
The ABC Council is also involved in a £4.7m Greenways application alongside Waterways Ireland, Monaghan County Council and East Border Region. Again, the outcome remains up in the air.
From 2010 until 2015, Armagh City Council received £1,187,778.65 in SOAR (Southern Organisation for Action in Rural areas) funding.
And looking ahead, a further £8.02 million SOAR funding has been earmarked up until 2020 across rural areas within the Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Council area under Priority 6.
The first call for applications will be for the Rural Business Investment Scheme, with grants of between £500 and £90,000 available for businesses employing less than 50 people.
The emphasis of this scheme is job creation and this is reflected in the assessment process. A total of 195 attended workshops and eligible applicants will now be invited to submit an application into the closed call.
There is a total budget of £3.18million allocated to this measure.
Other measures for Rural Basic Services and Village Renewal are scheduled to open in October 2016, with more opportunities for calls in 2017 for Rural Broadband, until the total budget for each measure is allocated.
They also received these INTERREG grants:
- EBR (East Border Region) Promoting Balanced & Sustainable Development £70,000
- EBR Tourism Development Plan £199,000
- PLATO £52,570.60
- Low Carbon Business Network £36,466
- STEM II £93,482.83
- ASPIRE £178,315.67
- EBR Innovation Programme £94,923.78
- Action for Biodiversity £81,544.50
- Energy Efficiency & Micro Generation Project £77,881.40
- Tradelinks £64,800
- ICE (Innovation for Competitive Enterprises) £11,866.50 per Company X 9 Armagh companies = £106,798.50
- STS (Success Through Succession) £11,866.50 per Company X 6 Armagh companies = £71,199
SEED (Family Business programme) grants:
- Achieving Finance £21281.86
- Export Development Programme £10275.00
- Franchise It £11601.14
- Public Procurement Programme £11075.14
- DotheBiz; Bright Idea £53655.00
- Food Development Programme £27760.71
- Creative Economy Export Dev. Programme £13137.57
- Offshore Business Dev. Programme £36750.00
- D3 Digital Dev. Programme £51237.29
- Evening Economy Programme £13121.43
- Family Business Programme £13108.29
- Entrepreneurship SEED £9857.14
- Product Transfer Programme £23191.28
- Sales, Everybody’s Business £11270.86
The PEACE III – Southern Partnership Peace and Reconciliation Action Plan:
This Programme included the following Project Partners Newry and Mourne District Council, Armagh City and District Council, Craigavon Borough Council and Banbridge District Council and funded a range of projects and programmes across these legacy Council areas.
The total amount awarded £4,263,571 of which approximately £1.1 million was distributed in the Armagh legacy Council area.
ERDF Funding:
- Sustainability and Growth Programme – Armagh City and District Council received £33,240.50 ERDF funding towards a Sustainability and Growth Programme ; this was a development programme for local businesses with mentoring, workshops and best practice visits.
- Evening Economy Development Programme – funding of £45,925 was received from the European Regional Development Fund.
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