Neo-endogenous rural development depends on 'bottom-up' activities that integrate external influences to increase local potential. This local focus calls for local knowledge, local resources and the engagement of local people to be central to development processes. Based on data from an evaluation of LEADER in England, we explore the scope for local control and the effective means of creating local empowerment within the neo-endogenous model. Interviews were held with policy actors and beneficiaries of funding across 20 of the 64 Local Action Groups in England. These highlighted a great diversity of projects generating an equally diverse range of outcomes. However, capturing their full value was problematic, suggesting that new approaches to evaluation should be explored to increase local control of the development process. Findings also indicate that the negotiation between top-down and bottom-up, and local and external influences is an ongoing process. Through this process, local learning has empowered local actors to develop flexible approaches tailored to their localities, but local empowerment is more effective when top-down parameters are clearly established.

The third set of questions concerns the economic role and entrepreneurial capability of the farmer in Cornwall.

Purpose – The key purpose of the paper is to consider the challenges facing local authorities in supporting sustainable rural settlements in their efforts to be enterprising and sustainable in confronted with increasingly severe downward pressure on local authority finances due to the recession; the long-term trend of increased adult social care costs linked to a challenging demographic profile across rural England; and increasing expectations around service delivery arising from more discerning “e-enabled” users of public services.\ud \ud Design/methodology/approach – This paper offers a structured reflection on the responses of a qualitative study of village sustainability, based on case studies of the inhabitants of three villages in Lincolnshire, England. The paper draws on responses by 70 voices to a series of workshops held in village halls and pubs.\ud \ud Findings – Significant work needs to be done at the local level, to support the transition from long-standing, organic practice within communities to the creation of an infrastructure which can support the delivery of more services by communities themselves.\ud \ud Research limitations/implications – Workshop-based approaches to gathering responses can allow for biased responses, and this study is limited to the views of self-selecting actors in three villages.\ud \ud Originality/value – The paper examines the barriers and opportunities facing local communities and introduces the concept of community to community learning

The article presents an account of a Farm Support Project in Cornwall which provides support, advice and an outreach facility for farmers in the Penwith district of Cornwall, UK. It discusses how effective such schemes are, particularly in an external environment, which poses threats to the farm sector in the UK. Three kinds of questions about the nature of farming and the status of farmers are posed. The first set of questions includes polarizations about the hegemonic position of farmers. Second, macro-economic, and thus policy, questions concerning the economic ‘footprint’ of the farmer and the farm’s relationship with the economy are posed in Cornwall. The third set of questions concerns the economic role and entrepreneurial capability of the farmer in Cornwall. The Penwith Scheme encompasses an integrated approach to providing business support to farmers including signposting specialist advisers, the facilitation of training assistance with major grant applications, the development of ‘social capital’ through to help in accessing sources of social support. Farm Cornwall is a unique example of support to farmers. Replication of such a scheme across other rural regions and indeed other business sectors is possible and desirable but would require a full appraisal of the efficacy of regional and local business support to rural business.

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