Community involvement in rural regeneration partnerships in the UK: key issues from a three nation study

This article reports and evaluates the lessons of a comparative study of community involvement in rural regeneration partnerships in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It highlights the distinctive challenges that its rural context place upon such involvement and finds three elements to be especially influential in supporting this involvement. These elements are the presence of supportive voluntary and community sector infrastructure, the opportunity for communities to learn through small scale projects before more strategic involvement, and the effectiveness of small grants schemes in supporting such learning.