Business proposals from three enterprising East Midland village communities are each set to get a boost from prominent UK business experts in the latest stage of Village SOS.

Tideswell in the Peak District, Harby in Leicestershire, and Newstead near Kirkby-in-Ashfield in Nottinghamshire last month had their ideas for starting up new community-run businesses shortlisted through Village SOS - a scheme to inspire a UK rural revival, run by the Big Lottery Fund (BIG) and the BBC.

Each of the three villages have now been paired with a Village Champion – an experienced professional who, over the next few months, will help them to develop their initial business ideas into viable plans. Six of the best projects will be awarded up to £400,000 from the Big Lottery Fund in May and their respective Village Champions will move into the villages for a year to help the businesses get off the ground. The process will be filmed for a new BBC One series, due to air in 2011.

In Tideswell, top UK consumer brand expert Tim Nicol, who has worked for Mars and launched popular pasta-sauce brand Dolmio in the UK market, will work with villagers to help them develop their idea for Taste Tideswell – an innovative project that will embody a number of locally branded initiatives including growing, making, cooking, and selling local food.

In his career Tim has worked on many top consumer brands, and for the past seven years has been running a creative consultancy firm which has advised leading multi-national clients on innovation and brand planning. He is a big fan of village life and organises the yearly gala in Easton-on-the-Hill, the East-Northamptonshire village he currently lives in.

He said: “I have a background in food marketing and branding so Taste Tideswell is the perfect project for me. The idea of branding a village and transforming the local food economy for the benefit of everybody in the local community and beyond is an exciting and worthwhile challenge.”

In Harby, the Belvoir Open Waterways Society project will get a helping hand from the Dutch concept consultant and social entrepreneur, Beth Derks.

Over the next few months, Beth will help the Harby villagers to work up their business idea, which centres around restoring the Grantham canal, while also generating new revenue for the village through selling a by-product of the clean-up process – silt - as food plant pellets.

Beth currently runs a consultancy business in Reydon, Suffolk, which provides ideas and expertise to community groups, schools and businesses to help them instigate and implement change. As part of this, Beth has been involved in variety of successful social enterprises and community projects, from community cooking cafes and radio stations to sports pavilions. As an expert in creative thinking, with a wealth of experience in creating new ideas and discovering original solutions to existing problems, she is looking forward to helping Harby succeed in their plans.

She said: “For me the Belvoir project stands out because the people driving it are really passionate and genuinely want to make a difference. I hope that, with our combined skills and expertise, we could make this project into a very successful and long-lasting venture.”

The Future Newstead project in Newstead, Nottinghamshire is working in partnership with Rural Community Action Nottinghamshire on a business idea to transform a 220-acre site of former colliery spoil heaps into a thriving, multi-use Country Park and resource for the local community.

Helping the project to develop their proposal will be husband and wife team Anthony and Julia Thistleton-Smith. As a director of his own architect firm specialising in environmentally sustainable designs, Anthony will bring a wealth of useful experience to the project, a key part of which involves building work and renewable energies. Julia is an experienced businesswoman who co-founded an award-winning PR firm and has advised some big business names including eBay, Heinz and PlayStation. She will use her strength in project management to ensure the smooth running of the project.

Anthony said: “The requirements for this project seemed to match our skills exactly and we were so impressed with the people we met in Newstead, who were all very positive and inspiring. While the community here is very strong, there is genuine need for a project like this in the area, which is still recovering from the loss of the coalmining industry 20 years ago. It would bring massive benefits to the local community.”

Mick McGrath, Big Lottery Fund Head of Region for the East Midlands said: “This is a really exciting stage in the Village SOS process. These champions will add a great deal to the villages’ business ideas, helping them to strengthen and develop them into robust business proposals.”

Further Information

Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 020 7211 1888
Out of hours contact: 07867 500 572
BBC Wales Communications: Jenny Walford: 029 2032 2373
Village SOS public enquiries: 0844 88 88 677
Textphone: 0845 6021 659

Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on the website: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk

Notes to Editors

• Village SOS – an initiative by Big Lottery Fund and the BBC to inspire UK rural revival – aims to fund six rural villages to develop new business ventures that will breathe new life into their areas, create new jobs and improve the quality of life for local people.
• Twenty-eight villages were shortlisted in November and offered a development grant of up to £10,000.
• Villages will choose a Village Champion, who have been found through a nationwide search run by the BBC and Enterprise UK
• In May 2010 around six projects will be awarded Lottery funding of up to £400,000 and their respective Village Champions will move into the villages for a year to help them turn their business idea into a reality.
• BBC Wales will follow the stories of the six new rural enterprises from start up to trading for a major BBC One series in 2010.
• *Details of how other villages will be able to use the learning and enthusiasm from the programme will follow.
• The Big Lottery Fund (BIG), the largest distributor of National Lottery good cause funding, is responsible for giving out half the money raised for good causes by the National Lottery.
• BIG is committed to bringing real improvements to communities and the lives of people most in need and has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK since June 2004. The Fund was formally established by Parliament on 1 December 2006.
• Since the National Lottery began in 1994, 28p from every pound spent by the public has gone to good causes. As a result, over £23 billion has now been raised and more than 317,000 grants awarded across arts, sport, heritage, charities, health, education and the environment.
• Enterprise UK gives people in the UK the skills, confidence and ambition to be enterprising, encouraging people to have ideas and make them happen. www.enterpriseuk.org. Enterprise UK is a Company Ltd by Guarantee and a Registered Charity (Registered Charity number 1127187). For more information contact PR Manager Ochuko Adekoya on 020 7430 8028 ochukoenterpriseuk.org