PURPLE is delighted to announce that the application to deliver a workshop on "Sustained and sustainable growth strategies in areas around major urban centres" has been accepted by the Committee of the Regions as the focus of an event to take place as part of the European Week of Regions and Cities (EWRC) 2016. The week comprises over 100 workshops and debates involving a total of 187 regions and cities from 28 countries who will join efforts with "Meeting Place" partners, 13 Directorates-General of the European Commission and services of the European Committee of the Regions.
A “PERI-URBAN consortium” led by Surrey County Council will bring together five partners: three PURPLE Regions (Surrey, South Moravia and Frankfurt) and two non-PURPLE provinces (Val-d’Oise in France and Osijek-Baranja in Croatia). PURPLE President Mrs Helyn Clack responded to the news, saying "this is both testament to the hard work of all the officers involved from PURPLE - and beyond - and to the reputation which PURPLE enjoys as the leading champion and advocate for peri-urban areas across Europe. I am delighted at this news and very much look forward to an event which should be a highlight of a very special week in Brussels".
The workshop will be shaped around the urgent need to address challenges facing regions and areas surrounding major urban centres which serve as key drivers in a globalised economy. In particular the intention is to focus upon, and draw attention to good and best practice in the ways in which regions can stimulate and encourage appropriate forms of economic growth of an appropriate type, and the particular role that Cohesion Policy and it accompanying tools and programmes can play in this process.
The consortium partners share a common interest in growth and development in areas around, at the edges of and beyond urban centres and metropolitan areas, where functional economic areas straddle lines between what is often thought of as “urban” and “rural” where links between urban and rural territories are at their most concrete and where the two co-exist, overlap and coincide. Areas such as those represented within the consortium have atypically high levels of internationalised business, are generally prosperous and face challenges around issues such as multi-functional land use, pressures on physical and human infrastructure and complex labour market shifts.
The plan is to offer a mixed platform of speakers and contributors able to speak from personal experience about the successful deployment of a range of tools designed to stimulate and encourage growth in ways that are appropriate the needs of given places, local economies and communities. Members of a mixed audience of political representatives, practitioners and stakeholders will be able to learn about the work of others, share their own experiences, have direct input to group debates and develop opportunities for future cooperation.
More details will emerge over the coming weeks and months as the project consortium develops its plans further and detail will be added to the PURPLE website as it becomes known.
