Economic Development Plans & Projects

Business Retention + Expansion Project

The Business Retention + Expansion (BR+E) Program, funded by the Rural Economic Development Fund, is led by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and is a community-based effort to assist and encourage local businesses to stay and grow in the community. 

Although our BR+E project focused on the retail and service sectors, the Township of Selwyn hopes to conduct BR+E projects for all of its sectors in the future.

The BR+E survey identified the strengths and challenges faced by 71 local retail and service sector businesses and the results were used to help develop the Business Retention + Expansion Report.

Cultural Mapping Project

The Cultural Mapping exercise, funded by the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport through the Creative Communities Prosperity Fund, identified and catalogued the various cultural resources in our community such as: natural heritage, cultural industries, community cultural organizations, agriculture, culinary resources, and religious organizations.

Community Cultural Mapping provides many benefits, such as: 

• enables development of partnerships which enhance cultural vitality;
• supports local cultural sectors by giving residents and visitors access to information about arts and heritage activities;
• strengthens the case for investment in local cultural resources;
• provides a basis for policy development, planning, decision making, and integration into municipal plans; and
• helps the community visualize cultural assets through the use of maps

As a result of the Cultural Mapping exercise, the following maps were created to identify various cultural resources within Selwyn:

• Bridgenorth
• Curve Lake Area
• Ennismore
• Lakefield - Community Organizations
• Lakefield - Community Resources
• Lakefield - Culture Based & Support Activities
• Lakefield - Cultural Heritage
• Lakefield - Natural Resources
• Young's Point