Western Daily Press (Saturday)
The countryside has to change For the better – not for the worse
ARURAL affairs expert has urged a generation to secure the future of the countryside as it enters a period of unprecedented challenge and change.
Julian Glover, a writer and policy adviser who chaired the Landscapes Review for Defra, spoke at the Dulverton Literary Festival recently.
He shared his insights on the role and value of the countryside in Britain and the need to be positive and ambitious about its potential.
Mr Glover began his talk by mentioning his book about Thomas Telford, an engineer and countryman who saw no contradiction between change and progress, beauty, and a love of the countryside.
He said: “He was very confident about both. I think it’s something we need to discover again in our country.”
He explained the motivation behind the Landscapes Review, which he led four years ago, and the Future Countryside event he helped to chair earlier this year.
He said: “All of us are here today, I imagine, because of a simple thing. We care about the countryside. We love places such as Exmoor, or the Derbyshire Peak District, where I live. We want to protect and improve them for people and nature. We want to see a healthy, happy countryside.”
He acknowledged that the countryside is facing a moment of enormous change: “We need to show why the countryside matters to strengthen, help and protect it. It’s a moment now of massive change for the countryside, but I think it’s one of those things that comes along to the countryside every 50 to 100 years.
“Thomas Telford’s generation in the 18th and early 19th century saw a massive shift in the countryside, with the industrial revolution going on in towns. We had the enclosures, obviously, before that, another period of enormous change. We had the mechanisation of farming just before and then after the Second World War, and this is a moment like that now. We have to accept that the future of the countryside in Britain is going to be different from how it is today, or how it is in the recent past.
“The question that matters is not whether it will change, but how do we make sure that change is positive? We want change for the better, not change for the worse. We might end up, I suspect, with a British mix of both better and worse, but we should be positive.”
He also pointed out the tensions and battles that exist over the future of the countryside, such as rewilding versus food production, solar farms versus beauty, house building versus the green belt, and natural capital markets.
“Different voices are calling for different things. That means we need to be clear about what it’s for,” he said.
He argued that the countryside is not just about tradition, place, national pride, beauty and other things, but also about food production, fitness, health, happiness, energy production, carbon reduction, housing, water and jobs.
He said: “For almost every major national issue, the countryside has a big role. How do we get food in the future? How do we keep people fit? How do we tackle obesity? How do we get clean air? How do we fight climate change?”
He stressed the importance of making the case for the countryside and showing why it matters. He said: “We need to show what the role of the countryside will be, what we could do for the nation.
“Since the Second World War, we had a rural landscape shaped very heavily by the government and government demands. The aim, more or less everywhere, was to increase production. That’s what the country thought the countryside was for; to be very good at producing lots of food and to do that in the maximal way possible.”
He added: “There is also the matter of the aim of future countryside to be positive and look forward and bring people together. The risk is everybody sliding towards absolutes... those who care about rewilding, the loss of curlews, and farming. They all have a point, but you end up with people arguing internally, not saying the countryside is potentially the most wonderful thing we have in Britain.
“It’s already fantastic but we can make it far better still. We need to look out and be bold, listen to opposite sides and ask if they have something to teach us.
“The farmer and the environmentalist are often on the different sides of small arguments but on the same side of a big one. They both care about a flourishing countryside.”
Mr Glover warned that this was especially important as the countryside could not rely on politics any more, as there was no strong coun- try voice in Parliament.
“The Tories don’t look after the countryside in the way they might have done in the past; they’ve got lots of complex issues going on inside that party, and there aren’t any rural MPs,” he explained. “Many seats with many rural people have a big town or city, so MPs often focus on both. “It’s interesting to see Labour, as the election gets closer, beginning to realise they are going to represent more rural seats after the election, and there’s some interesting thinking going on there.” He added: “The countryside matters wherever you are from. This is central to our future.”
He urged people who care about the countryside to be positive and hopeful and to avoid nostalgia and division. “The British are very good at being nostalgic. It’s very attractive to look back and say this is the wonderful thing we’ve lost, or the part of our life we are losing,” he added.
“It doesn’t help us to say it used to be good, and now it’s going downhill. We’ve got to say there are some issues we could deal with, and we can make it better because that’s how to make the case for the future.
“We cannot get trapped in an enveloping nostalgia against change. It’s a simple choice. We can be positive and hope for a better future. You do not have to go far in the countryside to find brilliant things happening.
“There’s all sorts of regeneration going on in farming, villages rescuing the pubs, the NHS just beginning to think about social prescribing and telling people to go for a walk might be better than giving them lots of drugs,” he added. “Our generation can and should make things better.”
‘The question is not if it will change, but how to make sure change is positive’ JULIAN GLOVER