Project details

Action programme for securing regional services for the public

The ‘Regional Services for the Public Action Programme’ has been launched by the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development (BMVBS) as a part of the ‘Rural Infrastructure Initiative’. Within the framework of this spatial planning pilot programme (Modellvorhaben der Raumordnung – MORO), between the beginning of 2012 and the end of 2013 21 rural regions receive financial and specialist support for the elaboration of strategies to safeguard services for the public. The programme’s objective is to develop regional adaption strategies tailored to selected fields of services, and to elaborate a corresponding master plan on services for the public. The action programme is intended to support the practical implementation of these strategies, thus contributing to the realization of the overall concept named ‘securing services for the public’. This is a central part of the spatial planning strategy jointly pursued by the national level and the federal states (Länder).

The participating regions are winners of a competition carried out in 2011. During the phase of competition, the SPESSARTregional LEADER region and the administrative district of Hersfeld-Rotenburg were successfully accompanied by the IfLS and ‘stadt.land.freunde.’ (Berlin). The IfLS contributed to proposals by elaborating the concepts for the regional public services strategy within the framework of a broad participatory process. In total, 50 regions submitted their concepts for a regional public services strategy.

Since the beginning of 2012, the IfLS in cooperation with stadt.land.freunde. (Berlin) has been commissioned to monitor the processes and elaborate the regional strategies for the administrative districts of Coburg and Trier-Saarburg as well as for the SPESSARTregional LEADER region. The tasks of the IfLS include, amongst others, the organization and moderation of events as well as specialist process monitoring and research assistance.

The administrative district of Trier-Saarburg, located in the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, encompasses the regional metropolis of Trier and is directly bordering Luxemburg. Many citizens living in the administrative district work in Luxemburg, i.e. the region is significantly characterized by cross-border commuting. The regional public services strategy is intended to counteract this tendency.

The administrative district of Coburg is located in the north-west of the Bavarian administrative region of Upper Franconia, directly bordering the federal state of Thuringia. According to the demographic forecast carried out by the Bavarian office of statistics and data processing, a population loss by 10% is to be expected by the year 2029. The development target formulated within the framework of the Coburg administrative district’s regional strategy is to elaborate a concept for securing the area-wide offer of services for the public in the ‘Coburger Land’ region.

The SPESSARTregional cooperation area, acknowledged as LEADER region since 2007, is part of the administrative district of Main-Kinzig located in the south-east of the federal state of Hesse. Especially the rural eastern part of the region is facing demographic change. The IfLS is in charge of strategic process consulting and specialist monitoring.