Hinterland - rural intelligence from behind the headlines (w/e Fri 3 Dec 2010)

Weekly summary - 3 December 2010

Blimey its cold here. Thomas Hardy captured the current view from my windowsill perfectly when he wrote: "Every branch big with it, Bent every twig with it, Every fork like a white-web foot; Every street and pavement mute...."

I offer a metaphorical gold medal to anyone who can quote the source of these words. I did reflect on just how dependent rural places are on well maintained transport links whilst taking 5 hours to navigate the 11 miles home from Lincoln on Tuesday in the snow. Readers in the East Midlands might like to follow this link to see what I was up to earlier that day - it might be of interest.

On to other things, this week's Hinterland includes my views on: tinkering with the Police, tinkering with public sector pay, tinkering with the landscape, tinkering with the poetical past and tinkering with statistics. Any other rural pots and pans I can offer to mend?!

Ivan Annibal
ivan.annibal@roseregeneration.co.uk

PS: Thanks to Jessica for her significant help this week on Hinterland.

PPS: can any of you help a fellow Hinterland reader with examples of failure to rural proof things that could have benefited from such an approach?

Government to unveil radical
police reform plans

(Link: The Independent, 1 December)
This article sets out the implications of 'The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill'.
    Described as "the most radical reforms to policing in 50 years", the piece recounts how Home Secretary Theresa May wants to put locally elected police and crime commissioners in charge of police budgets as part of an attempt to hand back power to the public.
    Indeed, the new commissioners would be responsible for hiring and firing Chief Constables! Amid the package of reforms included in the bill - from tackling alcohol related disorder to the establishment of a new National Crime Agency - one feels that there may be a discrepancy opening up here in rural areas where police forces are frequently overstretched as they cover such large geographies and have to deal with crimes that can be specific to rural localities (i.e., theft of agricultural machinery, fly-tipping).
    In response to a question from Andrew Percy in the Commons in June this year regarding how the Coalition Government plans to improve policing in rural areas; Nick Herbert emphasized how policing should meet local priorities through directly elected individuals, regular beat meetings for residents to hold the police to account, the publication of 'crime maps' showing the public what is happening in their streets and reducing bureaucracy that hinders the police.
    With the findings of the Consultation on 'policing in the 21st century: reconnecting police and the people' now being worked through, to what extent rural residents want to see significant changes to police governance and to what extent this would result in increased police presence and visibility in rural places remains untested.

'Maximum pay multiple'
urged for public sector

(Link: The Independent, 1 December)
This has been an interesting week for those of us who work in the public sector.
    On the one hand, the Office for Budget Responsibility issued revised figures on likely public sector job cuts - down from an estimated 490,000 to 330,000. On the other hand, this piece in the Independent provides an update on the 'Review into Fair Pay in the Public Sector' - suggesting that top executives should not be paid more than 20 times the wages of other staff.
    Yet what is missing in these figures and policy dialgoue is a real discussion about the role that the public sector plays in society and its job stock in many rural places. Many readers will recall a piece of work I carried out earlier this year with the RSN titled 'whose job is it anyway?' The research revealed how Oxfordshire had the highest number of public sector employees of all rural counties in England and the 10th highest number of public sector workers out of all 152 local authority areas.
    This means that Oxfordshire has more public sector employees than Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and Bristol. In essence, this reveals how public sector job losses and public sector spending cuts disproportionately disadvantage rural England. For those of us working in the public services and/or who depend upon the delivery of public services, what this means on-the-ground is only now starting to become clearer.
    With Local Government Finance Settlements due out next week, watch this space.

Residents fund nature reserve
in new housing development

(Link: The Guardian, 1 December)

In a muddy field on the outskirts of Portishead near Bristol volunteers are apparently transforming a site into a nature reserve with help from the Avon Wildlife Trust.

According to the article, residents living in a new development adjacent to the reserve have agreed to pay an annual fee towards the maintenance of the land as a condition of purchase. The developer, Persimmon Homes, paid the set up costs. While this is a good news story about a private company, environmental group and community members working together to reform an ash covered landscape into a wildlife haven, I would like to know if this is happening on a bigger scale - I'm sure much activity goes on in rural places without attracting the press coverage of Portishead - and if this can promote the 'green corridors' recommended in 'Making Space for Nature'.

For as this Defra sponsored report argued, the connectivity of England's ecological network is vital if the inexorable decline in the number of species and continuing loss of valuable wildlife habitats is to be stopped. With Defra's Consultation on the Natural Environment White Paper now closed, in Spring 2011 the Government will publish its priorities for the natural environment

Is Portishead an example of a mechanism that could be used to ensure we manage our natural systems more effectively in the future? And does it reflect the mutual interdependence of the economy and natural environment that the Coalition Government is striving for?

Robert Burns museum opens
at his former home in Ayrshire