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EMMTAS aims to provide a series of interventions designed to ensure that participating town partnerships can effectively buy and manage assets, for the benefit of the community and to provide an income that will contribute to the sustainability of the partnership.
The objective of EMMTAS is to support the partnerships to develop investment proposals that will be successful when presented for funding to strategic agencies, grant funders, patient capital sources and banks. While partnerships will expect to target emda and SSPs for investment, plans will need to identify alternative sources of grant and loan finance if a step change is to be achieved both for individual partnerships and the wider network.
The programme will work with up to 14 town partnerships, from across the region, agreed with SSPs and emda . The objective is to work with 2 partnerships from each region, although when considering the expressions of interest in the scheme, we will balance this objective with the objective of working with the 14 partnerships most likely to make considerable progress during the life of EMMTAS.
Following a rigorous application and recruitment process (see below) participating market town partnerships will;
• Be taken through a process to assess their ‘investment readiness’ and suitability for this programme by looking at capacity, viability of the project proposal and sustainability of the project longer term. Each partnership will receive a report of their assessment readiness and the issues they need to consider when taking their proposals forward.
• Be assigned a ‘critical friend’, mentor or coach to support and finalise their investment plans by addressing the issues arising from the investment readiness assessment .
• With the critical friend, mentor or coach, identify the skills and capacity requirements to bring plans to the point of presentation , develop and cost and action plan and draw down bursary funds to these objectives.
The bursary scheme is intended to cover a range of potential costs including expenses, specialised training, consultations etc. The bursary total available is £140000.
As an incentive, the EMMTAS graduates will be able to bid to an emda ‘early ready and willing’ capital fund. At the time of writing in December 2006, £600,000 will be available to towns in 2007/8 and 2008/9, which are judged to be investment ready, have an asset identified for purchase and development and are successful through emda’s project appraisal process. The emda funding could complete the jigsaw of funding or be the first investment that gives confidence to other funders and thus lever in additional investment.
It is expected that the ‘early, ready and willing’ capital fund will support a number of projects, thus providing publicity for the principle of asset development as a route to independence and sustainability. By demonstrating what is possible, partnerships participating in EMMTAS will provide incentive to other market towns to consider the approach and provide useful learning for the emda’s wider Regional Restoration programme currently under development.
Applicants interested in the ‘early, ready and willing’ capital fund will be put in contact with the rural affairs team at emda through the EMMTAS scheme.
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