Two sides to rural debate
From: Martin Powell, Woodacre Green, Bardsey, Leeds.
IS it not wonderfully reassuring to know there are now so many experts about? So much can be explained because their help is so readily available.
Because we now are able to import a lot of our food it is interesting to learn the experts advise us that we no longer need to grow as much and this ‘frees up’ the Yorkshire farmland and leaves it ‘ripe’ for development. The arable fields, the meadows, the verdant pasture. Apparently these are not playing their part in contributing their fair share to the greater economic need of the countryside and so it is in danger of ‘being left behind’.
Villages risk being ‘blighted’ by economic shortfalls. The countryside is ‘in decline’, so the problem needs to be addressed. Young people are leaving rural areas and though they always have done so, now it has become of concern. Where are they heading off to? Places where they can meet dozens of people of their own age. Where there are shops, coffee bars, cinemas, burger joints, dance halls, whilst leaving nature behind them to return to its natural state, rewild and heal its wounds. Is this right? Should we not be concerned?
With so may warnings about the loss of natural diversity and interdependence, about bird populations in collapse and insects dying out and no matter how many trees we plant, it will all be for nothing if they die out. Should we not ignore this and stick with the experts who want to cover the countryside in housing estates and stop people leaving?
Should we forget that old maxim about wherever money goes to work nature suffers and dies, and concentrate on more important issues like Brexit and economics and finance and ‘unlocking’ the ‘value’ in the fields and return to competing with Brazil for who can close down anti-global warming measures the quickest?
Should we not continue to adhere to the proposition that an expanding population is good news? The more people there are on the planet, the more are spending money and that encourages economic growth. This wise statement came from an immigration barrister appearing on the BBC.