Hinterland - rural intelligence from behind the headlines (w/e Fri 28 Jan 2011)

Weekly summary - 28 January 2011

I was on the road earlier this week - Settle on Monday as part of a new local food strategy project and London on Tuesday at Defra for the launch of the OECD of Rural Policy in England.

This is a brilliant and hard hitting report led by Professor David Freshwater from the University of Kentucky. It slays a number of dragons taking the view that: rural governance is too complex, mainstreaming of policies is problematic and (hooray as I have been banging on about this for a long time) that rural and urban England whilst inter-connected do not have broadly similar economies.

It also confirms my conviction that there is no joined up thinking about tackling the over dependence of rural England on public sector jobs. It also says lots of things about empowering rural communities to get on with more things themselves, even though it was started considerably in advance of "Big Society" debate. Please do take a look here. I also have copies of Professor Freshwater's slides if you would like them.

Ivan Annibal
ivan.annibal@roseregeneration.co.uk

Wrexham & Shropshire rail franchise
shuts after severe losses in profit

(Link: The Guardian, 26 January)
This line - which serves some of the most rural commuters in England and some in Wales - is due to close. Its German majority shareholders (confirming the global world we live in) feel unable to underwrite its losses any further.
    This is a great shame and more challenging still it raises the broader point, likely to be exacerbated by the recession and the nasty shock we had on Tuesday over the quarterly growth figures, that without significant and focused public subsidy, travel options for many rural communities are largelly limited to the private motorcar of "Shanks Pony".
    There was some interesting discussion on "You and Yours" on Wednesday about cuts to public transport by local authorities and the impending impact of Government cuts to the scheme for nationally supporting bus fuel costs.
    I forsee lots of unintended consequences in terms of access to services and rising carbon footprints in rural areas arising from the blanket cuts proposed and in a number of areas forced on local authorities...and yet- my good friend Colin Walker at East Riding has achieved some amazing things in terms of "bottom up" community transport - we could all learn a lot about tackling this agenda from him.

Doubts cast on coalition's 'Big
Society' and nudging tactics

(Link: The Guardian, 26 January)
This is a cracking article and follows naturally on from the one above in terms of the challenges faced by communities wanting to do something to address service failure themselves.
    It explains how: Most councils have not started introducing the government's "Big Society" agenda and do not understand what it is, a study reveals today.
    A report by the consultancy firm Deloitte reveals that 80% of councils have not made any progress on the localism agenda. Many claim they are faced with Whitehall "intransigence" and resistance to the plans and that there is "no common understanding" across government about what the big society actually is."
    Given the magnitude of localism as an initiative, there is now an urgent need to build understanding of the challenges around localism, and address systemic dislocation between central and local government," it says. "But the real test of localism in modern government will arrive when things start to go wrong." The article goes on to reveal how doctors quoted in the BMJ are cynical about the prospects for the so-called nudge approach to encouraging people to take on healthy lifestyles.
    I believe in the Big Society and I like nudge theory. To me what they offer to rural communities is the opportunity for greater self determination and better outcomes based on informal and local forms of cooperation. What this article reveals is the long haul involved in tapping effectively into what is sometimes called rural social capital (ie community spirit) to ensure that organisation's service agendas and local people's service aspirations meet at the right point. I think the prize is ultimately worth the effort.

Waitrose crowned Britain's favourite supermarket

(Link: Daily Telegraph, 26 January)
Fascinating article this. We all know about Waitrose and its ethical policies, the quality of its food range and its key role around initiatives such as the Prince's Countryside Fund.
    Even more interesting their sales have stayed strong even in the recession perhaps revealing a strengthening commitment amongst their brand of shoppers to a certain approach towards food which recognises its intrinsic value.
    More disappointingly, the Coop - which exhibits many of the best facets of mutuality and may appeal to a different market - came bottom of the list. We are what we eat and I always feel on this basis that supermarkets and their rise and fall are key indicators of broader social values.
    I wonder what inferences one might draw from the respective performance of these two players in terms of the impact of the recession on people's habits and values?

Pesticide linked to bee deaths
should be suspended, MPs told

(Link: The Independent, 26 January)

Anyone involved in agriculture appreciates the importance of bees and this article reveals another challenge to them.

It tells how: "..new generation of pesticides is implicated in the widespread deaths of bees and other pollinators and should be suspended in Britain while the Government reviews new scientific evidence about their effects, MPs were told yesterday. Neonicotinoid pesticides are linked by "a growing weight of science" to insect losses, and the assessment regimes for them are inadequate, the Labour MP Martin Caton told the House of Commons."

Green MP Caroline Lucas offered a really powerful context quoted in the article as part of this debate - "The Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas, said Defra "seems extraordinarily complacent about the health of bees". She told MPs: "As long ago as 2005, I asked the European Commission to comment on a Defra cut that saw a halving of seasonal bee inspectors. Given that beekeeping contributes over £165m a year to the UK's economy in direct terms, and has an unquantifiable value in terms of the health of our ecological systems, this complacency seems very misplaced."

So what do you think? Is this all over-egged or do we have a serious issue on our hands?

Councils warn of pothole cash crisis