Borough hosts annual Rural Conference

Delegates representing the rural parishes of the borough, along with key partners including Leicestershire Police, the Rural Community Council, voluntary and community sector and business representatives attended.

The year’s event focused on learning and celebrating the work of our parish councils, networking opportunities and bringing delegates up to date on key priorities:

• Launch of updated Climate Change and Biodiversity Strategy 2024 to 2028
• Making space for nature, an introduction to Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS)
• Launch of updated Rural Strategy 2024 to 2028
• Updates on local tourism including the Market Bosworth 1485 sculpture trail and Charnwood Geo-park which encompasses Ratby, Markfield and Groby.
• Community projects update part-funded through the Borough Council’s Parish and Community Initiative Fund, videos of some of these projects can be found on the council's YouTube channel (youtube.com)
• Update and question & answer session from the Leicestershire’s rural policing team

Delegates also had the opportunity to attend dedicated workshops with Leicestershire Police, Voluntary Action Aid Leicester, The National Forest Company and the Borough Council’s Communications Team. They also heard about the work of Student Footprint, a group of like-minded students from Market Bosworth School who are working hard to make their school and community more environmentally friendly with simple but effective solutions, for example producing their own water bottles to encourage more sustainable alternatives.

Councillor Martin Cartwright, Executive Member for Rural Affairs said:

I would like to thank all our parish councillors and clerks along with our partners for all the work they do for the borough’s communities particularly over the past year.

This conference, at a venue which compliments the council’s focus on climate change and sustainability has provided everyone the opportunity to network and be updated on a range of topics covering climate change and biodiversity, tourism, the rural strategy and different community projects plus many other subject areas of interest to rural communities. We look forward to developing and progressing new initiatives both within the borough council and its partner organisations in the forthcoming year.

Joanna Garland, Director at Mythe Barn said:

It’s been a pleasure to host the Rural Conference and as a certified ECOsmart venue with sustainability at the heart of everything we do hope that the themes of the conference help achieve positive change towards climate change and local biodiversity.

For further details about the rural work programme and strategy contact Cultural Services email: culture@hinckley-bosworth.gov.uk