The countryside: a story of neglect
THE sheer length of a report from the all-party parliamentary group for rural business on ‘levelling-up’ the countryside testifies to how many issues and deficiencies its inquiries have uncovered.
The fact that the group has also taken the unusual step of writing directly to the Prime Minister asking for the inclusion of a rural White Paper in the Queen’s Speech – even at this late stage – illustrates, equally, how urgently it believes remedies need to be found and delivered.
And it will not take long for anyone reading the report to understand why. Rural areas, it is quite clear, are suffering from years of neglect: managed through planning policies that are not fit for purpose; still lagging behind in terms of broadband and mobile connectivity; and with development often hampered by tax laws.
And presiding over it all is Defra. Led, as the report points out, by a willing ministerial team but unable to wield any direct policy influence outside the areas of farming and forestry, while those Government departments which do operate the necessary levers adopt a laissez-faire attitude, the main outcome of which is to ensure that change and improvement are achieved but slowly and painfully.
Little of which will come as a surprise to any farmer or any rural businessman. However, the hard figures – the revelation that the rural areas are 18 per cent less productive than urban ones – do put the matter in sharp perspective. As does the assertion that if things were ‘levelled-up’, the additional economic output would amount to some £43 billion a year.
Perhaps with a £43bn carrot and the prospective ensuing benefits to the Treasury dangling in front of it, the Government will finally sit up and take notice, stop fobbing the rural lobby off with blandishments and undeliverable promises and ensure that rural issues receive the attention they deserve from all relevant departments – and pretty smartly. It’s worth hoping for, at least.
Fundamentally, we are witnessing the results of a breakdown in communications between Government and countryside. Those groups speaking up for rural areas are headed by the CLA and the NFU, neither representing more than a narrow section of rural society.
Ranged against them are powerful and more influential conservation lobbies and agencies, such as the CPRE, often more interested in stifling change and maintaining the status quo than creating and sustaining a thriving rural economy. The report, however, hits hard at some key targets, pointing out, for instance, that the countryside is under the control of a planning system that is not fit for purpose. Under which, for instance, it is far easier to gain consent for the large housing developments that are now splattering urban fringes and swamping traditional villages than for small-scale schemes which would fit in more comfortably and with less impact on the environment.
The report even goes so far as to suggest additional training for planning officers so they understand the needs of the local economy – though without building more flexibility into planning frameworks planning officials will still incline to follow the letter of the regulation.
Certainly a more sympathetic and understanding attitude towards development would be welcome inside national parks. Their planning officers still appear to regard their mission as being to apply a stultifying influence in order to allow as little change as possible, however much of a brake this may apply to economic development.
They have shown themselves doggedly intransigent on matters as diverse as eco-homes, on-farm houses for retiring farmers and even the provision of modern farm buildings to replace crumbling Victorian ones which no longer comply with health and welfare regulations and cannot be altered to do so.
The report stresses more flexible policies are needed to facilitate the creation of business hubs in redundant farm buildings: a perfect example of repurposing but one which so often encounters hurdles and obstructions rather than help and support.
And there, really, lies the nub of the problem. The countryside is regarded within Government as a vague entity. No department which wields any influence over it is kept up to speed as to its requirements and thus remains hopelessly out-oftouch, unable to respond to changing circumstances.
We have no ministry for rural affairs acting as a champion for rural businesses and offering advice and encouragement in order to unlock the potential economic benefits that have now been quantified.
It’s a scary situation to be in as farmers – only 25 per cent of whom would be profitable without direct support, the report underlines – grope their way through those bits of its new rural policies the Government has so far managed to cobble together to see if they have any hope of long-term financial survival.
With the entire rural economy now going through such an upheaval farmers and landowners should be able to look to a Government department to help them rather than run up against a tax system which attaches a sheet anchor to, for example, the provision of affordable homes for rent, while witnessing the Government busily rowing back on some of the commitments it airily made towards delivering superfast broadband – one of the most valuable tools in the kit for any business these days – to the entire country.
They should be able to turn to the Rural Payments Agency for advice and guidance on how to best to claim and benefit from the payments that are on offer, rather than having to encounter a pit bull response every time they run up against it.
The report’s conclusions are absolutely correct: there is much to be gained by levelling-up the shires so that businesses can operate as smoothly and efficiently there as they do in town and city.
The countryside has huge economic potential. We have a fabulous local food culture but we are a long way from fully exploiting it. Our farmers produce some of the best food in the world – but the report itself is not slow to point out that downward price pressure from supermarkets is keeping producers short of investment funds to expand and develop. Much could be gained by the creation of more farm cooperatives – though it will need a distinct culture change in the farming community for this to happen.
And there is huge scope for further development of rural tourism – without descending to the over-exploitation which has wrecked so many once-scenic settlements in areas such as the South West – particularly as farm holidays currently appear to offer a welcome additional income stream for producers who are slowly having the rug of direct support pulled from under their feet.
But it will all take co-ordination between planners, development agencies and funding providers, among many others. It will require a new unity of purpose. And that, I suggest, will only be achieved through a discrete Department for the Countryside.