Local Development

The Kilkenny County Enterprise Board (CEB) is the first point of contact for small business in County Kilkenny. The CEB is also one of the primary local development agencies in the County, helping to stimulate economic development and community enterprise. The CEB has been instrumental in assisting local communities throughout County Kilkenny in developing much needed workspace for intending and growing enterprises, and has been proactively involved in local community based initiatives such as the Kilkenny Inter Agency Forum, Kilkenny Enterprise Centre, Kilkenny Information Age Project and the Kilkenny Industrial Development Company. The CEB has also been instrumental in levering additional resources into Kilkenny through participation in other EU and national programmes. The CEB is also an active member of the Kilkenny County Development Board. The CEB has 2 nominees on the County Development Board.

The County Development Board is charged with the task of implementing a Strategy for the Economic, Social and Cultural development of County Kilkenny. The County Development Board has set itself a number of key priorities and actions over the next three years. The CEB has been nominated to either lead or be proactively involved in implementing a number of these actions, including:

• Develop a strategy for the establishment of a third-level education presence in Kilkenny and promote the Kilkenny perspective in any debate on third level provision for the south-east. Kilkenny is a designated regional hub under the National Spatial Strategy.
  This action aims to build on Kilkenny’s existing sectoral expertise. Kilkenny has traditionally been associated with creative and artistic endeavours and more recently with financial services, software development and customer service provision. It has attracted and retained organisations such as Statestreet, BOI 365, Infoscore and VHI Healthcare.  To maintain a pre-eminent position as a ‘centre of excellence’ Kilkenny must deliver specialist third level programmes to service the needs of these sectors by producing high quality, local graduates. A third level presence in Kilkenny would do much to redress issues of local access to third level education and increased participation levels. Access to resources for R&D, technology transfer and commercial research through a third level presence would also positively impact on local business by increasing the R&D spend of the county.
  
• Develop an inter-agency action model to facilitate economic and enterprise development in local areas and apply the model across a number of local communities.
  This action is based on examining the key ingredients contributing to the success of the two year pilot programme for local development that has been delivered in Castlecomer. Chief features of this scheme included an interagency Advisory Forum and the presence of a Business Development Executive (employed by Kilkenny CEB and co-funded by Enterprise Ireland and FÁS). This pilot has had success in terms of the number of socio-economic projects developed and is currently being examined in terms of its applicability as a model for local development in other areas. The model was created in response to the closure of Comerama in Castlecomer which resulted in the loss of 160 jobs. The project has involved the facilitation/creation of fair employment, skills training for alternative fair employment and the general promotion of Castlecomer to encourage inward investment and business creation. It is envisaged that future action will include examining the existing model in the preparation and implementation of statutory local area plans. It will also be examined when assessing local community structures and supports to ensure effective delivery and deployment of local development resources.