The lull before the reality

THROUGH December, sunrise lit up the hard frost on fields and hedgerows and transformed even the most ordinary of countryside into something magical: the glistening trees, the hint of mist over the meadows and the stalwart groups of sheep grazing unperturbed. Frost picks out otherwise unnoticed details on cottages and farmhouses getting ready for the day; it makes the commonplace shine. This loveliest of seasons shows the pastoral scene at its English best.

Of course, it’s been cold, but there’s been no need for anyone to be cold, except the very poor and the stupidly vain. For the fortunate and sensible, January can be the lull in the year. In the early morning, well wrapped up, we can see the dawn breaking over familiar countryside as if for the first time. Crisp and glittering, it presents itself to us afresh.

This is the moment when we can contemplate the world with unaccustomed equanimity. Christmas is over, the new year in the countryside is beginning in its unhurried way and we can lose ourselves in the frosty beauty that has delighted countrymen and women for as long as humans have been around. Trump, ISIS, North Korea and Brexit suddenly all seem far removed.

However, this lull is only brief. Soon, the sun will be fully up and the workaday world of 2018 will be upon us. Perhaps now is the time to consider what it is that we should carry into that daily grind. What is it that will lift our new year?

First must be a determination to keep this countryside so that generations to come can experience a sunrise like these and catch the transforming magic of frost. The determination to build 300,000 more houses a year may be necessary and socially admirable, but it must not be achieved at the cost of the countryside.

Rebuilding in towns, reusing already used land and insisting on walkable, livable urban communities is not only possible, it’s utterly necessary, but stringing more and more homes across the countryside, forcing small towns and villages to outgrow their strength and suburbanising the rural scene that the winter’s frost delineates is destruction, not regeneration.

Even the right building won’t be enough to turn back the juggernaut of urban development; we have to think through the very real problems of rural communities. Although over-development of the countryside is hugely damaging, there’s still a real need for local affordable housing in market towns and villages.

There are too few homes for the young, who can’t hope to compete with the retirees and comfortably off. Our lop-sided communities are, therefore, often dominated by older, middle-class people. We must make more rental accommodation available, extend ‘staircasing’ schemes for people to get on the home-ownership ladder and build houses that are specifically limited to local people.

Job opportunities for the young are also limited and we need to ensure that the Government’s Industrial Strategy extends to them and the specific issues of rural Britain. It will be all too easy for these sector deals to be dominated by urban interests.

January may provide a lull, but it’s not an escape. We can’t leave the countryside to protect itself, still less take its glories for granted. It needs constant renewal. We who are fortunate to live the rural life must not leave this to others.

‘Trump, ISIS, North Korea and Brexit all seem far removed