LEADER is a rural development grant scheme made up of funds from the European Union and the Scottish Government but disbursed locally by groups called Local Action Groups (referred to as LAGs). These LAGs are made up of both agency members and community members with a minimum of 51% of membership always being made up of community members. It is the Local Action Group that direct the fund and who make the decisions on which applications are successful.
LEADER has an emphasis on projects that are created from the ground up and that are innovative and so successful applications to LEADER will have to demonstrate that they have substantial community buy-in and that they are innovative. LEADER is also not able to fund projects that are continuations of ongoing projects and is only able to fund new discrete projects.
All successful applications will have to demonstrate that they will deliver at least one of the following objectives and outcomes.
The Tyne Esk LEADER area covers rural East Lothian and rural Midlothian except Musselburgh and Dalkeith, a map is available here.
Tyne Esk LEADER have been allocated £3.49m towards the 2014 - 2020 LEADER Programme with a minimum of 10% allocated for farm diversification, a minimum of 10% allocated for rural enterprise projects, a minimum of 10% allocated for cooperation projects and a maximum of 25% going towards administering the fund with the rest going towards the main community grant scheme. There is a minimum grant amount of £10,000, a maximum grant amount of £200,000 and a maximum grant percentage of 60%.
