HC Deb 29 March 1994 vol 240 cc643-5W
Mr. Frank Field

To ask the President of the Board of Trade, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. Evans) of 8 March,Official Report, columns 204–5, how regional challenge and the envisaged competition between local deprived communities in a locality will help to achieve sustainable regeneration; what is meant by the term "Community support framework areas"; and if he will place in the Library, information regarding the rules of this competition and how bids will be judged.

Mr. Sainsbury

Regional challenge, an alternative method of selecting projects for European regional development fund grant, will improve the use of this fund for sustainable regeneration because the competition will stimulate better applications, which should involve the co-operative participation of appropriate authorities and bodies and the private sector.

Detailed rules will be published in due course.

The community support framework areas in England will be:

  • Objective 1
  • Merseyside
  • Objective 2
  • North East
  • Yorkshire and Humberside
  • East Midlands
  • West Midlands
  • Greater Manchester/Lancashire/Cheshire
  • Greater London
  • West Cumbria
  • Thanet
  • Plymouth
  • Objective 5(b)
  • South West
    • 645
  • Shropshire/Herefordshire/Worcestershire (the Marches)
  • Staffordshire/Derbyshire (Midlands Uplands)
  • Northern Uplands
  • Lincolnshire
  • East Anglia

I do not intend to include west Cumbria, Thanet and Plymouth in the first regional challenge competitions.