ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces some of the key concepts contained within the term local rural development and then goes on to consider the way in which the approach became adopted within EU structural policy. It proceeds with a case study of how the LEADER I programme was interpreted and implemented by a local development initiative in South Pembrokeshire, Wales. In 1991, the European Commission introduced a policy initiative in the form of the LEADER programme. The Reform of the Structural Funds announced in The Future of Rural Society signalled a change from Regional Policy that had been in operation since 1975 to a Rural Policy. The relationship between a Local Action Group as an institution/identity and the wider institutional level was different in each LEADER initiative. For SPARC, these links were necessary in order to secure project co-funding and also to attempt to integrate the various sources and spatial levels of policy making with the activities of the LEADER initiative.
