News Release - "Do Or Die" Challenge For Rural Communities

Britain’s rural villages are at risk of dying unless radical action is taken to secure their future, according to the “Rural Challenge” report published today.

A newly formed Rural Coalition, made up of leading organisations which represent rural interests, is calling on the Government to deliver on its Big Society vision by radically empowering local people to shape the rural places in which they live. The group is warning that without this action, rural services face meltdown as spending is cut, housing will out-price all but the wealthiest and rural wages will continue to lag as much as 20 percent behind urban averages.

The Rural Challenge outlines detailed proposals to give local people, entrepreneurs, community groups and councils the ability to bring about positive change that will ensure a thriving future for the countryside. The report is being billed as a blueprint for delivering the Big Society in the small places which are at huge risk unless action is taken now.

The Rural Challenge report sets out detailed propositions for taking on five key challenges facing the countryside – meeting rural housing need, building thriving economies, delivering good rural services, creating flourishing market towns and empowering local communities. The Rural Coalition, chaired by Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, believes this can be achieved by letting communities seize the initiative.

Key recommendations of the report include:

* Urging the Government to give greater independence to local residents and councils to ensure that rural communities can continue to live and work, and therefore be the foundation of a beautiful and living countryside with a secure long-term economic future.

* Scrapping plans for referendums in the Government’s Community Right to Build scheme which would require 90 percent community support before new, small-scale development can go ahead in villages. The Coalition says the requirement could wreck the aim of the Government’s proposals and create long-lasting conflict within communities which brings local development to a halt. Instead, elected parish councils empowered by a community-led plan, should be able to initiate small community-led developments, within a reinvigorated and localised planning system designed to meet local needs in-keeping with the area.

* That town hall planners, local councils and communities should be free to come up with innovative solutions to the rural affordable housing crisis. By reforming the Housing Revenue Account and allowing councils to keep money from selling council homes, local authorities will be freed to help address the urgent need for new housing for young families and low-income households in rural areas.

* A call for the Government to take proper account of the impact of public sector funding cuts on rural areas before finalising the Comprehensive Spending Review in October. By allowing communities to share some of the savings the Government makes to public spending on services, communities would be empowered to develop innovative local alternatives through community provision - including community ownership of shops, Post Offices, pubs, broadband hubs, sustainable energy and local community transport.

* Pressing for a radical transformation of planning practice to give communities the lead in planning for thriving and sustainable new neighbourhoods when market towns need to grow. Too often market towns in urban areas have been ringed with endless suburban style housing estates and business parks, without any sense of rural identity.

The Coalition is made up of, and supported by, an unprecedented range of bodies from the private, public and charity sector including the Country Land and Business Association (CLA).

CLA Vice-President Henry Robinson said: “The needs of rural communities for better jobs, housing, transport, services and leisure are similar to those in urban areas. Yet many in the countryside feel they are not receiving the benefits of national economic growth, and that Government does not fully understand the relationship between rural businesses, rural life and the environment.

“The countryside is a mosaic of activities, each with a contribution to make to the whole. New businesses must be encouraged into the countryside to provide new sources of income and employment. Management of the countryside, the health of rural communities and provision of services are also part of the same picture and all depend on one another.

“Some rural communities have become unsustainable because of a negative approach to development. The planning system has been used as a brake on appropriate and much-needed development in the countryside in the misplaced belief that this supports communities and the environment. The system must be approached in a new way, as a positive, proportionate and flexible instrument to promote the long term sustainability of businesses, communities and environment that surrounds them.”

Chairman Matthew Taylor, who authored the Taylor Review of affordable housing and rural economies in 2008, said:

“On its current course, with no change in policy and no commitment to action, much of the countryside is becoming part dormitory, part theme park and part retirement home.

“We need a fundamental change of approach at both national and local levels to give rural communities a more sustainable future. The rural coalition believes the Government's commitment to localism and the Big Society opens the door to those reforms - but as yet there is a very real risk that in practice cuts will fall heaviest in rural communities which may lose services altogether, and opportunities will be missed to make rural communities prosper.

“For 50 years or more, policy has undervalued the countryside and failed to meet the needs of rural communities. The result is starkly apparent: rural communities have become increasingly less sustainable and less self-sufficient. Today we publish a blueprint for the Big Society in small places - if the Government is serious about localism, it should rise to the challenge."

(A copy of the report ‘The Rural Challenge: achieving sustainable rural
communities for the 21st century’ can be found here

Responses

Thank you for the opportunity Steve.

Rural communities must take more ownership for their destiny which means working together and formulating visions by being strongly cohesive with all groups. The Farmers, Parish Councils, Parish Churches, Womens Institutes, Pubs, Young Farmers' Clubs, Preservation Societies all play a huge part in the structure of the yearly calendar.

The County of Hampshire is a excellent example of people working together, for 10 years we have enjoyed the benefits of Farmers' Markets, Hampshire Fare and stimulated communities putting on their own events and the wonderful annual fetes which act as a proactive bond endorsing what living in the countryside is all about.

The calendar of the countryside is set in stone and let's make it very clear that anyone moving out of the city for a quiet life is in for a nasty shock ! Herein lie some of the problems, sustainability relies on simple factors like shopping locally not online, joining in with community happenings, realising that there might be straw on the road or combines working late into the night and accepting that this is part the rural calendar which will never change, some years are good, some bad, some early, some late, but all part of the rich pattern of rural life.

To be sustainable we must have a clear vision based on our rural calendar, work together, join in and communicate, and above all use our local resources.

We are most fortunate to live in a proactive and forward thinking County but always keep in mind the rural calendar which will never go away.

Work together and support what you have as much as you can.

Peter Fountain
Odiham Town Manager
Supporter of Sustainable Rural Life.

Sent to Stephen Lloyd,Fleet Online - stephen.lloyd@fleet-online.co.uk 18/08/10 in response to the above Press Release

Hello Stephen, good to hear from you.

Here in the south east of England, rural businesses are apprehensive about the effects of the demise of the Regional Development Agencies. SEEDA has been a useful foil to the negative attitude to business espoused by local authorities, in an area where wealth creation is considered by many to be something best done elsewhere, and the countryside an aspirational location for living and bringing up children.

Rural businesses enhance the daytime population, which, in turn, support the local services which are so treasured. However for many rural residents, any evidence of business activity is unwelcome, and this is reflected in democratic representation and policies.

Rural businesses are at the forefront of local food production, and will be playing a major part in the energy and waste recycling sectors. The message to local politicians is clear: you can chase these businesses away, but they might end up further away than you think (i.e. outside the UK). In the end economics will prevail over politics, and it will be interesting to see whether the putative Local Enterprise Partnerships will take off. Right now they probably represent our best chance of maintaining a vibrant rural economy.

Robert Benford

Update

On August 19 I attended the launch of a bid fronted by Basingstoke & Dene and Rushmoor to pitch for Local Enterprise Partnership status for an area billed as 'North Hampshire and M3 corridor'. The bids have to be submitted to HMG by September 9. They are competing with a bid from HCC for the whole of Hampshire to become an LEP. I am firmly of the view that the more local LEP would be better, but am concerned that so far there appears to be no vision for how this LEP might function, and worse, that there is no plan for either including the rural communities or excluding them. This is history repeated for those of us who wasted years talking about sub-regions. Much of the funding for rural businesses and communities starts life in the RDPE, which, up to now, has been administered by SEEDA, so this does matter.

Robert Benford

Please comment, this is important to communities like Odiham and we want to know what you think. (if you aren't already registered with the Odiham Community Website just register for an account and you'll be able to comment on any of the posts) To register go to create an account on the home page or just click here.