News

In light of the considerable volume of interest in the European Green Deal call within the Horizon 2020 programme, and given the significant level of peri-urban reference within those calls, PURPLE will shortly be issuing a brief "prospectus" document. The aim of the paper is to set out what PURPLE members feel a peri-urban dimension might look like in projects being developed for funding applications; what role PURPLE itself might play in such projects and their development, and; the role that individual PURPLE member regions might play in projects and their development.

As interest levels are already high and expected to increase, the plan is to have the PURPLE prospectus prepared very soon - details to follow.

PURPLE has been successful in its application for Secretary General Vincent O'Connell to become a member of the European Network for Rural Development (ENRD), group working to develo the EU Long Term Vision for Rural Areas (LTVRA). The Thematic Group #Rural2040 on the Long Term Rural Vision as it is to be termed, convenes for its first meeting on September 22nd.

The group of c50 individuals, selected from about 260 applicants will now work intensely over the next months in shaping the LTVRA due to be launched next spring.

More details of the group's work can be found at:                    https://enrd.ec.europa.eu/enrd-thematic-work/long-term-rural-vision_en

Anyone wanting to learn more about PURPLE’s work in this area is invited to contact: info@purple-eu.org

As widely reported elsewhere, the European Commission has published the last call of the Horizon 2020 programme making c€1 billion available to finance projects designed to deliver against a range of European Green Deal ambitions.

A suite of twenty calls for projects has been published - the text of five of which now make specific reference to the peri-urban. This represents a significant opportunity to focus on the peri-urban as part of 100% funded pieces of work each valued at anywhere between €5 million and €53 million. The PURPLE Working Group is currently looking at the exact details of various calls.

It also represents a considerable success for PURPLE itself which made sustained efforts over the summer for explicit recognition of the peri-urban to be included in text of call documents - work which has borne fruit.

The areas covered in the calls for proposals with stated peri-urban relevance include:

• Climate-Neutral and Socially Innovative Cities - where there is reference to urban and peri-urban transportation
• Circular economy - where reference is made to the need to include neighbouring peri-urban and rural areas in urban clusters (a particular point upon the importance of which PURPLE had argued)
• Restoring biodiversity and ecosystem services - where applicants are invited to focus on addressing barriers to implementing nature based solutions (NBS) in peri-urban as well as in urban, rural and marine areas; another point for which PURPLE had argued
• Citizen involvment and behaviour change - where two calls for proposals both require the inclusion of analysis (and involvement in experimentation/deliberation), of "peri-urban areas".

At its 32nd General Assembly held virtually on June 16th, PURPLE member regions formally adopted a new Work Plan to cover the period 2020-22.

For the first time, the Work Plan includess five focus areas designed to give additional shape and purpose to the work of the Working and Lobby Groups:

1. Peri-urban climate action
2. Peri-urban land, landscape and space
3. Peri-urban food and agriculture
4. Peri-urban work and leisure
5. Peri-urban mobility and transport

Now that the three-year Work Plan has been approved, the Working Group will develop an Annual Action Plan (AAP) for 2020, setting out what has happened during the first half of the year and what is planned for the second.

The European Commission has been consulting recently on the European Climate Pact element of the European Green Deal (EGD). Two days prior to the closing date of the public consultation, DG Clima hosted a webinar in which PURPLE participated and which gave an opportunity for interested parties to share views on just what such a pact might include and how they might be able to be involved.

PURPLE also submitted a response to the on-line consultation exercise itself.

In May 2020, the European Commission (EC) published the slightly delayed EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 with the strapline “Bringing nature back into our lives”, and complete with annex containing a draft action plan comprising almost 40 specific actions. As well as the 27 page Strategy + annex document, the EC published at the same time a “Factsheet” on the EU Biodiversity Strategy (with the same “Bringing nature back into our lives” title), a four-page Questions and Answers document and a second factsheet specifically addressing “The business case for biodiversity”.

The Strategy document contains reference to the peri-urban, specifically to the greening of urban and peri-urban areas. Reading the text suggests that by peri-urban what is probably meant is in fact more "suburban", and certainly what the text goes on to describe is very much straight urban. Nevertheless the reference is there as part of a larger argument for more urban greening, healthier ecosystems and more and better Green Infrastructure.

Subsequent to the publication of the Strategy and accompanying documents, the EC Policy Department for Structural and Cohesion Policies has produced a Briefing for the benefit of the European Parliament's Agriculture Committee. That too contains a reference to peri-urban, and reports that the EU Nature Restoration Plan within the Strategy contains "key sectoral commitments by 2030 for agriculture, forests, marine areas and urban/periurban areas".