Rural grants paralysed by second-guessing of Brexit by British officials
SIR – I am secretary of a charity that runs Pewsey Heritage Centre, a little village museum in Wiltshire. We wanted to convert a building into a village research centre and an education facility for local schools, using local voluntary labour.
In March we initiated an application for a grant of £7,500 from the Leader programme, a rural funding initiative funded by the European Union, controlled by Defra, monitored by the Rural Payments Agency and staffed by Wiltshire council.
Hoops were successfully jumped through, reams of paper forms filled in, and the grant application was submitted to the reviewing board at their meeting of June 24. (The date is significant.)
We understand that decisions were made and grant funding may or may not have been awarded.
But we have now been told that an embargo has been put on the results by the Rural Payments Agency, shellshocked by the Brexit decision, and unsure whether the EU funding to Britain will be available. I was under the impression that until Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty was invoked, relations between Britain and the rest of the EU should continue as they are. They obviously are not.
Based on the performance of the Rural Payments Agency, it is not European bureaucracy that we should be afraid of in any Brexit negotiations, it is our own dear Civil Service.
Frightened of its own shadow, it seems completely unable to make constructive and beneficial decisions. May the Lord help our negotiators. SIR – The glee with which Nick Clegg warns that the appointment of Michel Barnier to represent the European Commission at Brexit talks will “set alarm bells ringing across the City” (report, July 28) is truly nauseating.
The former deputy prime minister should accept that he lost the argument and the referendum vote, and he should start sticking up for SIR – We are inundated with ministers and business leaders hiding behind the Brexit vote as an opportunity to divest themselves of their bad news. SIR – Jeremy Smith (Letters, July 28) asks that, as a goal of Brexit, inappropriate EU laws should be removed. Here are three I can think of. 1) Allow the use of sodium chlorate as a weedkiller again. It lingers longer than the kind approved by Brussels. 2) Change signs that indicate the steepness of hills back to 1 in 8 or 1 in 12. I’ve no idea what 12 per cent or 8 per cent look like. 3) Bring back filament lamps. Cheap and instant light, and a bonus of warmth on cold days.