ASSET – Action to Strengthen Small European Towns
Introduction
The project was initiated at an ECOVAST Conference in Retz, Austria in November 2005. Since then the position of Small Towns in European policy has been highlighted at groupings of International NGOs of the Council of Europe, and at conferences and seminars involving ECOVAST and ASSET in Austria, Croatia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and the UK.
The project focused on research on the challenges facing Small Towns and the ways in which they are seeking and receiving support from national and regional agencies.
The Organising Group of ASSET partners has prepared the way for concerted action:
* to gather and to support partners in proposals to the European Commission’s INTERREG IV programme
* to seek funding from international foundations
* to influence policy throughout Europe in favour of Small Town
Background / Starting points of the project
1. The small towns of Europe are a massive asset for the people, the heritage and the economies of the continent. They provide a focus of social, cultural and economic life in their sub-regions. They interact with the villages in their surrounding areas, and with larger towns and cities. They influence and react with their surrounding landscape (some with their seascape).
They vary greatly in their origin, age and character, and embody a local distinctiveness that is a vital part of the European heritage.
As well as the heritage of buildings and landscape, the people of the towns are themselves an asset. Asset-based community development recognises assets as five ‘capitals’ – (Natural capital and also human, social, manufactured and financial capital.
2. However, throughout Europe, small towns face severe problems, challenges and opportunities. Many have lost, or are losing, functions to the larger cities, as part of the processes of globalisation and centralisation. Loss of services and businesses within villages and small towns particularly affect the disadvantaged and those who are not able to drive cars (e.g. young, old, disabled). In some towns, commercial centres are losing vitality because of the creation of out-of-town shopping and service centres. In others that are a success in attracting shoppers and visitors, narrow streets and public spaces are often blighted by traffic or by excessive car parking.
3. There are good examples where the people of some small towns and villages have taken the initiative to assess their strengths and weaknesses and to promote a vision of a sustainable future, seeking assistance from municipalities, regions and agencies. Many other small communities lack the skills and capacity to take such action and need support from larger municipalities, regions, governments and NGOs.
4. In the face of these forces, there is a strong and widespread concern to revive the small towns, to protect and find new life for their remarkable heritage and to strengthen their economies. This effort falls within the broader context of policies within and beyond the European Union; and can call upon programmes of regional development, rural development, spatial planning and other sectoral activities.
5. However, no major European programme has focused on small towns, in their own right. They are, in this sense, a hidden asset. In some countries, government agencies or regional councils have focused on small towns, providing advice, finance and other support and encouraging networking and exchange of good practice between towns. Some national networks of small or market towns exist, such as Action for Market Towns in England, and others such as the Association of Croatian Towns, the association of towns in eastern Alentejo, Portugal and the Polish Union of Small Towns (Unia Miasteczek Polskich). Equivalent bodies to the Local Government Association (England and Wales) that exist in other member states will be important to such networks. At European level, there are some formal networks of towns with special interests, such as RECEVIN (wine towns) and Citta Slow.
6. However, there has been no significant effort, at European level, to link these different efforts and to gain the benefit of exchange of ideas and good practice between those agencies and organisations that wish to support the strengthening of small towns throughout Europe.
Addressing The Need
In an effort to fill that gap, ECOVAST and SEEDA joined with the Regional Council of Niederösterreich to sponsor, at Retz in Austria in November 2005, a European Conference on ‘Small Rural Towns’. This three-day event attracted 85 delegates from 30 regions and 12 countries.
After intensive discussion, and description of initiatives in many countries, the Conference agreed that a project should be launched to promote co-operation, and exchange of good practice, between governmental and other agencies throughout Europe who offer support to small towns.
ECOVAST and APURE (l’association pour les Universités Rurales Européennes), The South East of England Regional Development Agency (SEEDA), Yorkshire Forward (Regional Development Agency, England) as main partners, with the support of The Commission for Rural Communities (CRC) England) and MONTE, ACE – Desenvolvimento Alentejo Central, Portugal, have therefore taken the initiative in making progress on that project
Other interested parties include:
– COSLA (Convention of Scottish Local Authorities)
– Region of La Rioja Spain,
– The Town of Samobor and the Croatian Union of Towns and Municipalities
Aims of the project
a. To promote co-operation, and exchange of good practice, between governmental and other agencies throughout Europe who offer support to small towns
b. To promote contact and exchange of good practice between individual small towns throughout Europe.
c. To speak on behalf of small towns to influence the European Commission, Council of Europe, Committee of the Regions of the European Union and governments and The Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe.
d. To facilitate, support and encourage the delivery of research to enable evidence-based policy approaches to strengthening the well-being of small towns.
e. To develop policy formulation at European levels focused on small towns and their rural hinterlands.
Activities and outcomes
In October 2007, at Samobor, Croatia an ECOVAST conference SMALL EUROPEAN TOWNS – THEIR ROLE IN RURAL DEVELOPMENT AND HERITAGE PROTECTION, at which 72 people from 8 countries attended, consensus was reached on the Samobor Declaration.
At Wittstock, Brandenburg, Germany in 2008 progress was made in a draft declaration, and ECOVAST has drafted a supporting Position Statement.
In February 2017, Valerie Carter produced a paper on UK Towns and Cities. The paper can be viewed here: Towns and Cities
The Purpose of this Paper is to raise the profile of small towns across Europe as opposed to large urban towns and to try to influence future thinking and policy development in the Council of Europe and the European Union, particularly the Director General for the Regions and Urban Policy and the Director General for Agriculture and Rural Development of the European Commission and the Council of Europe.
On 16 November 2010 ECOVAST and ASSET organized a seminar in Potsdam, Germany on the topic of European Small Towns. The event had been organised by Angus Fowler of the German ECOVAST Section and Phil Turner of the UK ECOVAST Section.
A report from the Potsdam seminar can be downloaded here.
The integral document about the ASSET project, that compiles all materials from the old ECOVAST website can be found here: .Asset_E
Some information on ASSET, and an archive of previous pages that were previously on this ECOVAST website may be found at the DorfWiki site operated by Franz Nahrada, of ECOVAST AUSTRIA
Photo source: Image by Valter Cirillo from Pixabay