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Community Projects

We run a number of projects throughout rural Somerset.  Each individual has objectives, depending on the needs of the communities they benefit.  However, our projects share a common aim: to help communities become stronger and more sustainable.

For information about our individual projects please select the appropriate link on the menu.

Bringing people together for the local community

Community benefit is not only about how local people will benefit from a project, it is also about the benefits that can arise from people coming together, talking about their concerns and looking at ways of tackling them. So if your community needs support and help why not start by looking at the right project for you.

Rural Services

The decline of rural services has been well documented although the situation in Somerset seems to be little different from the national trends: an overall, though differently timed, decline in key rural services across rural England based on a range of factors:

  • The effect of market forces and, in some cases, the arrival of supermarkets in local areas making local services no longer competitive
  • The changing pattern of rural population, with more mobile residents with different shopping and consumer patterns becoming a greater part of the rural pattern of life
  • A change in expectations of rural residents themselves, no longer prepared to make do with relatively poor and expensive services and, in many cases, with the means and no opportunity to access better services.

This is not to decry all rural services and not to underestimate their importance to the people who still rely on them. Rather, it is to reflect the changes in rural society over the past twenty or so years and the increasing consumerism which has led to many rural services being perceived as the "poorer cousins" to those provided in more urban centres.

To find out more about the work of the Community Council on Rural Services, visit the "community projects" section of our website.