My work in the South East

I was Head of European Affairs for East Sussex County Council from 1995 to 2002. I had two main aims, to increase the volume and usefulness of European funding in the county and to persuade the councils and other bodies of the South-East to work together in influencing the EU.

Funding
I managed East Sussex’s INTERREG II trans-border programme with Upper Normandy which supported a wide range of projects by the public and private sectors and the voluntary sector. I helped to set up the successor programme INTERREG III which also involved Kent. My office also built up a successful programme of projects using the European Social Fund to help the unemployed. I co-ordinated the campaign which which led to Hastings, Dover and Thanet receiving Objective 2 funds from the EU.

Representation and Lobbying
We don’t have democratic regional government in the UK, which puts us at a disadvantage when competing with regions across Europe for attention in Brussels. Instead we have government regional offices (GOSE in the South-East) which represent Whitehall, regional development agencies (SEEDA) appointed and funded by central government and regional assemblies (SEERA) which have delegates from local government and elsewhere and carry out functions largely carried out by counties before. I worked in many ways with all these bodies and, in particular, argued for joint representation to the EU which was finally achieved by the establishment of South-East England House in Brussels, which I helped to manage.

The South-East of England is rightly seen as the richest part of the country but it contains many pockets of poverty and lack of skill, disguised by the overall statistics. Together with colleagues from across the region, I put together a campaign to promote the needs of the South-East to the European institutions. I led an all-party delegation of councillors from all over the South-East to lobby the European Commission and Parliament. We achieved some vital amendments to funding legislation which would otherwise have prevented the South-East from receiving European funds.