Time to help our youngsters

Simon Hart, the CA’s chief executive, told a gathering of members at Sixways, Worcester, that helping young people stay in the countryside, both through the provision of homes and jobs, was high on the agenda of the campaigning organisation.

“I should think at present affordable housing in rural areas is top of our policy agenda,” he said.

“Of course you need to clarify what you mean by ‘affordable’. Affordable to whom? In our case it means housing that can be afforded by young people who want to live in or near the villages they were born, rather than have to move on to some housing estate in a town.

“One of the problems that has to be faced is a shortage of suitable development in rural areas and this is where I believe planning authorities need to be both flexible and rigid at the same time.

“If a landowner has some land they are prepared to provide for housing, but is in the green belt, then I feel in the best interests of the rural society, the regulations should be relaxed to allow development.

However, at the same time, safeguards should be in place to ensure the right types of homes are built. They should be affordable to local people and not just an excuse to create another upmarket development of executive homes in a country location.

“I fear that if enough homes are not created in the countryside within the financial reach of young, local people, then our villages, many of which may have already lost their post office, shop or even pub, will suffer even more.”

Mr Hart and Countryside Alliance chairman Labour MP Kate Hoey visited the home of Worcester Warriors Rugby Club as part of a nationwide tour to meet CA members and explain future policy.

There was a time when the organisation was accused by its critics of being rather a one-trick pony over the hunting issue, pursuing that cause at the exclusion of others, but Mr Hart firmly denied this. “Of course hunting is an important part of our agenda and repeal of the Hunting Act remains a priority. I believe anyone who has ever come into contact with it, from whatever side of the fence, will agree it is a discredited piece of legislation and needs replacing. But as time has moved on, it has become clear that hunting is just one part of the rural jigsaw. Important to some, less important to others. But if you remove one part of the jigsaw, it becomes incomplete and affects the whole picture.”

Crime in rural areas and escalating fuel prices are other topics that are currently exercising the CA’s brains.

“As far as rural policing isconcerned, I feel the answer lies not so much in more police, but more effective use of the numbers there are,”

said Mr Hart. “Having spoken to officers on the ground, one of their great frustrations is the amount of form filling they have to do. Indeed there can hardly be a policeman or a farmer these days who does not feel they are being strangled by red tape.

It has multiplied out of all proportion to its worth and its only value appears to be in keeping some civil servants in work collating it.

Whether it has any beneficial effect is very debatable. Cut the red tape and allow police officers to spend more time on the ground.”

Mr Hart described how he had recently been on the rural beat with his local force in Wales. Following an arrest for assault, the accused had to be transported 20 miles before a police station with suitable cells could be found and there followed two hours of form filling and documentation.

“All that time the officers were effectively out of commission,” he added. “The system needs to be changed.”

Mr Hart said with the wet autumn bringing more flooding and affecting crops, sharp fuel increases that meant essential rural travel was more expensive and government threats of post offices closures and withdrawal of other local services: “Rural Britain’s tenacity is being tested to the limit and supporting our communities has never been more important.”