Engaging with our Communities

Sustaining the communities within the necklace of settlements that surround the Cambrian Mountains is a key aim of the Initiative. We seek to work with our communities to ensure that they are fully aware of what they can do to help themselves towards a more sustainable future, be this by:

• developing the value of local produce;
• developing the volume and value of the Cambrian Mountains tourism offer; or
• assisting with the development of environmental improvement schemes and renewable energy generation opportunities

Through our Community and Sustainable Development Officer, the Initiative will work with community groups to coordinate activities across the settlements, sharing good practice, promoting cooperation and preventing duplication of effort. We are seeking to engage with communities to promote the development of local action plans; not filled with aspirations to be delivered by someone else at some unspecified point in time, but practical actions that communities can take to improve their local environment, foster enterprise and safeguard the delivery of the services on which they rely.

Whether it’s improving the look of the village green, planting community woodland, generating power from a local water course or setting up a community shop, we aim to assist communities by supplying advice, offering encouragement and facilitating access to funding, including our own small grant scheme Cariad Cambrian.

The Initiative aims to be a catalyst for change. We cannot do everything ourselves, nor do we wish to. Our role is to develop the profile of the Cambrian Mountains and secure the conditions which communities need to prosper. We aim to coordinate effort and resources amongst the statutory partners to the Initiative, while securing additional strategic funding for the area that recognises and rewards the enterprise of our communities.