Countryside policies

News

03 October 1987

In a foreword to the commission’s annual report(*), Sir Derek says the current debate covers on-farm diversification, planning, housing and the outflow of suburbia, industrial stimuli and job creation, land use priorities and the public interest.

Sir Derek also points to what he terms the flowering of environmentally sensitive areas. “At last, here is an eminently sensible step in the restructuring of the Common Agricultural Policy. Now picking up some crumbs from the European Commission’s table, the actual funding of farming systems friendly to ‘conservation’ may have cracked the mould of the ‘old’ agricultural support on a more fundamental sense than has been realised.”

A series of questions are then posed. Is urban man’s conception of the countryside more or less understanding than it was? How will those who earn a living in the countryside react? Will economic tensions within the farming community result in some withdrawal of on-farm conservation effort? Will the political inevitability of greater public access and the consequent erosion of the landowning power base lead to restiveness and to pressure for a more perceivable quid pro quo? How will an increasing land use vacuum be coped with? And as food production undergoes some withdrawal, how will the claims for lower density housing, bigger gardens and green field hypermarkets be treated? Will the laudable policy of protecting the countryside for its own sake be questioned on the basis that to resist these social aspirations too strongly will provoke the charge of creating urban and suburban ghettos?

“The overture is coming to an end and we need to grapple with a new situation which will demand every ounce of effort as we hold the corner for the protection and sensible recreational use of the countryside.”

(*) Twentieth annual report of the Countryside Commission. Countryside Commission 19-23 Albert Road, Manchester M19 2EQ, £5.

Progress towards a “tighter meshing” of rural economic development with landscape protection and general countryside conservation is seen as the significant event of the past year by the chairman of the Countryside Commission, Sir Derek Barber. In a foreword to the commission’s annual report(*), Sir Derek says the current debate covers on-farm diversification, planning, housing and the outflow of suburbia, industrial stimuli and job creation, land use priorities and the public interest. Sir Derek also points to what he terms the flowering of environmentally sensitive areas. “At last, here is an eminently sensible step in the restructuring of the Common Agricultural Policy. Now picking up some crumbs from the European Commission’s table, the actual funding of farming systems friendly to ‘conservation’ may have cracked the mould of the ‘old’ agricultural support on a more fundamental sense than has been realised.” A series of questions are then posed. Is urban man’s conception of the countryside more or less understanding than it was? How will those who earn a living in the countryside react? Will economic tensions within the farming community result in some withdrawal of on-farm conservation effort? Will the political inevitability of greater public access and the consequent erosion of the landowning power base lead to restiveness and to pressure for a more perceivable quid pro quo? How will an increasing land use vacuum be coped with? And as food production undergoes some withdrawal, how will the claims for lower density housing, bigger gardens and green field hypermarkets be treated? Will the laudable policy of protecting the countryside for its own sake be questioned on the basis that to resist these social aspirations too strongly will provoke the charge of creating urban and suburban ghettos? “The overture is coming to an end and we need to grapple with a new situation which will demand every ounce of effort as we hold the corner for the protection and sensible recreational use of the countryside.” (*) Twentieth annual report of the Countryside Commission. Countryside Commission 19-23 Albert Road, Manchester M19 2EQ, £5.