In speeches and conversations with party members in the South East, I have asked people to make Freedom of Information requests to their local council to ask what EU funding their area has received or applied for.
Several members have done this and one member who has done some really excellent work along these lines is James Moore of Reading.
James made a simple FOI request to his council:
Dear Reading Borough Council,
Please can you provide me with details on how much funding the
Council has received from the European Union since it’s inception
and what projects/building/services did the funding provide for?Yours faithfully,
James Moore
He received this detailed answer.
James has now created an excellent graphic to display some of the key points:
I ask Liberal Democrat supporters in every area to make FOI requests like this. If you have a volunteer who can make a graphic that is great. You can also use the information for a local press release, Focus leaflet or letters to your local newspaper.
* Antony Hook was #2 on the South East European list in 2014, is the English Party's representative on the Federal Executive and produces this sites EU Referendum Roundup.
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5 Comments
Great that we get given some of our money back.
@John – Well if you don’t apply you won’t get any…
From the example of the last minute application to the The EU Solidarity Fund, my real concern here is whether we in the UK are actually applying for all the monies the EU makes available to us… At least James has shown that some are applying…
I have a request, could we have some coverage of Paul Keetch and the campaign of Liberal Democrats who now want to leave the EU, please , the media are not doing so properly , can LDV?!
You may find this site useful:
http://farmsubsidy.openspending.org/gb/
It gives regional/local breakdowns of EU funding under the CAP that can searched. An example of this is my LA in Portsmouth has received around €238,000 between 1999 – 2013 – Much of this on School Milk – Given LGS cuts, this would have had to be found from other areas if at all!
Also companies who are large employers such as Tate & Lyle: http://farmsubsidy.openspending.org/search/?q=TATE+%26+LYLE&country=GB
have received over €828 million for the same period, which somehow I don’t think they would have received such subsidies without EU funding. I can’t imagine any government, whatever their make-up are going to increase DEFRA’s budget by billions to make up funding IMHO.
If anyone wants to know the Liverpool/Merseyside/NW figures for Regional Development funding, I have them. Roughly, from 1994 to present, Merseyside 3 thousand million, rest of NW about the same.