Carlow to join International Urbact Project for Urban Spaces.

Following an application for EU Funding, Carlow County Council has been successfully selected to be part of an URBACT Network called Ru:Rban. URBACT’s mission is to enable cities and towns to work together and develop integrated solutions to common urban challenges, by networking, learning from one another’s experiences, drawing lessons and identifying good practices to improve urban policies.

Speaking about the project, Cllr. Fintan Phelan, Cathaoirleach said “I welcome this approval of funding and looking forward to Carlow County Council playing its part in the EU agenda by examining issues which are critical to the development of our County”. The Cathaoirleach continued to say “for me as Cathaoirleach part of developing a County is looking at best practice and Ru:Rban aims to bring together our local network with our new European partners to development, share and build on new ways of working to benefit all who work, live, visit and learn in County Carlow”

The project Ru:Rban builds upon the "Management model of Urban gardens in Rome" Good Practice, in order to transfer to EU cities geographically distant from each other to ensure sharing of experiences to enhance the capacities of local governance. Transfer efforts will be given to 3 distinct, interlinked, thematic components/elements that the Good Practice is divided into: Capacity building in organizing urban gardens, Inspiring and training people to manage urban gardens (Gardeners) and urban gardens governance & regulations.

A project steering group will be established shortly, and the focus of the project will be Carlow Town as a location and speaking about the project , Cllr. Ken Murnane, Mayor of the Municipal District of Carlow said, “I’m delighted with this project and I always said that EU presents so many opportunities and delighted we can add this project to our mix of EU projects”. The Mayor continued to say, “this project helps enhance our learning and development of Project Carlow 2040 and I look forward to seeing the project roll out over the coming months”.

The partners in the project are all Local Government organizations and include Rome (Lead Partner: Italy) / Split (Croatia) / Alexandroupolis (Greece) / ALGECIRAS (Spain) and Carlow Town (County Carlow).

The project will be coordinated by the Local Enterprise Office in association with relevant Departments in the Council. The funding approved for the project is €83,360. The project activities will commence in September 2021.

Kieran Comerford, Head of Economic Development & Enterprise said, “We look forward to working with our EU partners on this project and seeing where the potential lies in Urban Gardens and Tourism”. Comerford concluded by saying “the main benefit for Carlow from this project is the significant capacity development and networking opportunities for the County which may lead to further projects in the Future".