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Presentation to Commission on Rural Communities Uplands Inquiry

Andy Boddington 18 February 2009

Rural life is a struggle but it adapts. A long time ago that struggle was largely against the weather, making farms and local businesses pay through a bad winter for example. But rural enterprises survived because they had ready access to local markets, and in some cases larger populations. Much has changed in the last fifty years, and those changes have inexorably worn away rural communities and lifestyles. The distinction between urban and rural communities has been eroded with them.

My theme is “think local”. More than anything else, it is the erosion of localism that has weakened rural life. I refer to local food chains, we have more sheep than people in South Shropshire but as often eat lamb from New Zealand. I refer to local housing. People who live and work in the remoter areas of rural England struggle to buy, even to rent a decent home.

The greatest asset of the Shropshire Hills is the Shropshire Hills. It is a landscape that feeds us and provides timber. It is also a landscape that give great pleasure to residents and visitors alike. It is still a living, working landscape. Most of it is beyond commuterville, but we have many weekenders who work in the West Midlands conurbation and return on Friday night.

If I sound optimistic, I am not particularly. The rural economy is fragile. It is approaching a tipping point where a number of factors could lead to near irreversible decline. Let me describe six.

1. Rural knowledge. The knowledge to nurture the landscape is invested not in textbooks, but in people who have worked the land for land for a lifetimes, as did their father before them. This is not just knowledge of how to lay a hedge, but when and where to graze sheep, or grow crops to the best advantage. It is a knowledge that is held by individuals and shared by a community that is aging and not being replaced. Sons and daughters of farmers too often do not wish to take on the relentless toil of farming, especially in a bleak upland winter. The pattern is mixed, but I have a very clear impression that the higher a farm lies, the older the farmer is. The picture is not entirely bleak. There are younger farmers and the higher prices of late may encourage some to stay.

2. Education. Shropshire has a lamentable record in higher education. We send our youngsters away and too many do not come back to found businesses here.

3. Climate change. We cannot ignore the impact of climate change on rural life and the rural economy. Crops can be changed rapidly, but forestry is on a fifty year cycle or longer. We need to work through the implications for landscape and economy for each landscape character area. This is imperfect science, but it will improve.

4. Affordable housing. South Shropshire is good at affordable housing, but we have a long way to go. Weekend cottages, holiday homes and retirement houses squeeze accommodation in remote rural areas. We urgently need more houses with live/work spaces, and more houses for people on low wages in the countryside.

5. Services. Rural post offices, perhaps more than any other, are an enabling business. Artists, food producers, ebay sellers and many others rely on the local post office to send our goods out. They have a strong community function too. Broadband developments will allow small businesses to thrive, but the roll out here was lamentable and second generation broadband seems a pipedream.

6. Tourism. There is a tendency to see tourism as the icing on cake for local income, but it is integral to the sustainability of the landscape. Tourism and diversification should not distract from the need to make the fundamentals work—this is a farmed and forested landscape. There is a need to see tourism as an integral part of the Shropshire Hills, that helps maintain them. It could destroy them. There are points of friction but they are rare. The wealthy retired dislike traffic and events. Farmers are concerned about badly behaved walkers and campers. There can be pressure on wildlife sites, but that is not yet the case in the Shropshire Hills.

I’d like the highlight the example of the Bishops Castle Abattoir Project as an exemplar of an enabling business. The abattoir closed in 2007, knocked over by the FMD outbreak. 16 jobs were lost. The building, however, has been maintained. A group of entrepreneurs - farmers, publicans, meat processors - are raising funds to reopen it. Farmers will benefit from local slaughtering, lower costs, less stressed meat, and the welfare premium. They will be able to take stock and collect meat for their own sales networks, farmers markets and farm shops. They will have greater influence over final produce price. Publicans and restaurants can sell local meat, adding value and perhaps a premium through local food. Hopes of a Shropshire or South Shropshire brand are developing. This is a 360 degree project that helps keep hill farms alive, and that will help keep the landscape nurtured, good for tourism. The local food brand is good for tourism and good for the economy. The money will go to small locally owned businesses, not to distant shareholders.

To conclude. Planning has few solutions to the problems of the uplands. We need flexibility but we do not need encroachment on the natural and historic environment, our greatest asset. On the highest and remotest hills, much knowledge and skill is invested in an aging community. We need some lateral thinking and positive schemes for youngsters to stay on the land and in the community. Delivery of further and higher education is essential, perhaps through a university of the countryside or the uplands, with bursaries for young people.

Further Information

• Uplands Inquiry
• Shropshire's Uplands