The importance of your business’s social value: infrastructure
Coinciding with the release of the CLA member social value survey, we discuss how data from your infrastructure activity helps gauge the benefits to your local community and rural economy as a whole
The first theme covered by our survey, conducted by the Countryside & Community Research Institute (CCRI) at the University of Gloucestershire, is the provision of infrastructure. This could mean that you have installed infrastructure for broadband or renewable energy on your land, or supported community projects that provide broadband or renewable energy.
The data that you need to complete the survey is the financial cost to you of providing the infrastructure, alongside the time you (or your employees) input in a year, and the number of people who benefit.
Examples of supporting your community in providing this infrastructure could mean you provided land at a discounted rate, or free. In this case, please treat any discount as a cost.
If the project brings ultra-fast broadband to your village, please estimate how many people live in the village and use the service. If the broadband serves business premises, estimate how many employees they have.
All responses will be aggregated, and the total economic and social benefits will be estimated, but all are worthwhile figures to consider when calculating the social value of your rural business.
If you have any questions about completing the survey or the project in general, please contact Bethany Turner on 020 7460 7978 or bethany.turner@cla.org.uk.