Rural Representation- Have we got it right?

It has become fashionable over the last thirty years to claim that the Government is 'out of touch' with rural communities and businesses. Although the Tories and perhaps the Lib Dems were seen to be the parties of the Shires with a natural understanding of rural issues, nevertheless there was a feeling that farmers, in particular, had done better under Labour perhaps because the concept of taxpayer support to subsidise production was perceived by some to keep food prices lower.
I remember being one of the after dinner speakers at the first Labour rural conference at Harper Adams College in July 2002 orgained by Peter Bradley. It was well supported by a range of senior Ministers and it represented a proper attempt to get to grips with a range of rural issues. This meant looking not only at the expected subjects of rural deprivation, housing, transport, education and health issues but also the need for profitability and re-investment.
Yet shortly after this the 'Liberty and Livlihood' march took place in London in September 2002 bringing 400,000 onto the streets. This was ostensibly about supporting the right to hunt with hounds yet presumably in an attempt to ensure high numbers the organisers invites all those with any rural grievance from farming to post offices. This led to confused messages providing the Government with the opportunity to sidestep any particular rural issue that was difficult or uncomfortable.
The organisers of the march- the Countryside Alliance-illustrate the difficulty that any one organisation has in representing rural views accurately.Their membership is largely comprised of those interested in field sports and their attempt to portray themselves as something more than this has not been taken seriously. They have not succeeded for example in gaining a seat at the National Trust Council despite a recent application. Their executive Chairman has recently issued a plea for rural organisations to combine so as to improve their lobbying effectiveness yet this ignores the fact that rural issues are more complicated than that.

Flooding in the SW needs a co-ordinated response

 People get involved only if they feel strongly about issues. A consensus often means, as with the recent revised framework for National Planning Policy, that people interpret something in the way that they want to! Within the rural lobbying fraternity there are those who want to preserve the countryside in aspic and those that see it needing to change as the source of development and jobs; those who are landlords and those that are tenants; those who farm conventionally and those who farm organically; those who believe that shooting promotes conservation and those who oppose shooting on principle; those who believe bus routes should be subsidised and those who don't and those who believe that nature should be free to take its course free from any interference from man and those who believe the opposite.Most of these opinions are represented by some form of organisation or body!
I was invited to spend a couple of years as a Board member of the South West Regional Development Agency as it was being wound up.There were positives and negatives about the RDAs but I was horrified about the duplication that took place over rural representation. In addition to the meetings organised by the main rural lobby organisations there was the Rural Affairs Forum; the SWRDA Rural Group ; the Rural group of GOSW (Government Office SW) and the SW Chamber of Rural Enterprise to name but four, all requiring the attendance of the same busy people. What they all did was reflect the views of a diverse range of people and then pass them up the line to Government without any imperative to resolve them themselves.
What the Government has introduced to replace these groups is a network of Rural and Farming Networks around the Country. We have designed ours in this part of the world on the model of the three legged 'sustainability' stool. The commercial business of farming and rural business is represented by the SW Chamber of Rural Enterprise and this body is joined by the SW Environment Network and the SW Rural Community Councils thus representing economic, environmental and community strands of opinion.The main lobby organisations (e.g NFU;CLA; FSB; RSPB) work through the most appropriate sector. We recognise that funding is very tight and we therefore concentrate on the issues that really matter. We try and reach some consensus ourselves rather than expecting Goverment to arbitrate (or perhaps divide and rule!).
Whether or not this is localism in action I am not sure but the system is not yet perfect in my view. Having a direct link to Ministers and Government is helpful but in order to act in this way some basic administrative capacity is needed. Ours is provided by SWCoRE which is a membership organisation yet this administration takes valuable resource which could otherwise be used on problem gathering. We could be more effective with a tiny bit of help.  Others have no finance at all so inevitably have to find a funding source- a source that may well want influence over results. Ours attempts to balance the three 'legs' yet others have no such balance. Some, as we do, attempt to reflect common views over a wider area- such as the livestock interests of the SW Uplands for example while others are very confined geographically.
Duplication has not entirely disappeared either. We will have Nature Improvement Areas; Local Enterprise Partnerships, Local Nature Partnerships, Rural and Farming Networks all feeding into DEFRA and probably into different parts of it!
Government has a financial challenge- we all recognise that. The question is how to organise structures that work effectively in this brave new world and how to provide at least a modicum of resource so that they can operate dispassionately. We will not end up with one body representing rural views- they are too diverse. What we need is a properly designed model that facilitates debate at a local, and not too local, level so that the issues, when they reach Government, have been discussed and hopefully moderated making it easier to provide appropriate solutions. 

Come back King Solomon- Wisdom needed

This week will see the publication of the Government's long anticipated National Planning Policy Framework.
This has already been the subject of a 'phoney war' carried out between Developers and Conservationists in an increasingly shrill way mostly in the media.
Most of those genuinely interested in rural areas will have, I suspect, the same broad aims. These include allowing businesses that are responsible for providing jobs and looking after the landscape in rural areas to prosper. This means allowing justified expansion of premises; the use of cars (which will soon be carbon neutral) and the construction of sufficient housing for those working in such businesses to live locally. It also includes however the protection of our most valuable habitats,biodiversity and landscape- whether designated or not; preserving the setting of historic buildings and monuments; ensuring that 'brownfield' land has been looked at first before 'greenfield' and creating sensibly designed housing developments that do not 'concrete over the countryside'.
At the best of times it is difficult to reconcile these aims. When fossilisation of the countryside is advocated by rich bankers seeking to protect the view from and value of their second home or the need for critical mass and therefore large scale housing is argued on viability grounds by developers who can bemuse local planners with their financial calculations, we need an arbitrator.
Traditionally the balance has been provided by planning policy both national and local. The local, in the form of Development Plans, takes into account the national, in the form of Planning Policy Guidance.
The question therefore is will there be sufficient guidance to provide some future certainty for those on either side of the debate? However much of a fan you are of 'localism' it is essential to have consistency around the Country.
One problem, identified by many, is the lack of a definition of sustainable development.If you are going to have a presumption in favour of something you need to know what it is.The widely used 'development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs' doesn't really help us come up with answers in a particular case. What is a 'need? What does 'compromise' mean? The Government's 5 guiding principles from 2005 are ambitious but imprecise.
The laudable aim of reducing unnecessary beaucracy may leave scope for continuing argument which could end up with horse-trading or in the Courts. This won't speed the process up. Let's hope that the megaphone diplomacy of recent months will have resulted in a sensible document this week. If not we will need King Solomon back to adjudicate on every planning application in the country.