Hidden Britain - South East

"Rural regeneration and community development through tourism"

Hidden Britain is an initiative with the twin aims of encouraging tourists to go off the beaten path and take time to explore the more secluded areas of our countryside, and ensuring rural communities get the best return from this tourism by giving the decision-making power to the community as a whole. Hidden Britain provides the guidance, advice, support and experience to help realise the vision of the people who know the area best, and because of this Hidden Britain can be as flexible as necessary, providing exactly what is needed in any area at any time.

Because the initiative is not-for-profit, all the benefits return to the community and can be used to help address the issues of most concern in the local area. Therefore this initiative seeks to help rural communities by getting the communities to help themselves to uncover their own Hidden Britain.

Following a successful inception in Cumbria the Hidden Britain project has now spread to the South East with the aim of working with ten distinct areas over two years. The areas are:

We are working with these areas because they have remained largely outside of people's perceptions of visitor destinations. However they have a wealth of attractions, history, culture, landscape and wildlife that is definitely worth a second look, and in this sense are certainly Hidden gems. The intention is to uncover and link together all the things that make these areas distinctive, and by doing so, make them attractive, colourful, enticing destinations.

Once this is in place to then share this with a wider audience and put the areas on the map in terms of visitors. Of course the focus here is on "community owned and led", so it is the local people we are looking to for the inspiration, information and innovation needed. Hidden Britain is here to ensure that their vision becomes reality.

Here in the South East the project is funded by Defra through the Rural Enterprise Scheme and managed by the South East Rural Community Councils, Tourism South East and Natural Discovery.

More information about the Hidden Britain project is available form the Hidden Britain South East website. For information on similar Hidden Britain projects outside the south east visit the Hidden Britain national website.

	July 2010

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