Rural renaissance

Village pioneers are finding positive answers for low-carbon local development. Now the government needs to get on track.

The tiny village of Arram first got national recognition through a song about country railway stations facing the Beeching axe. In ‘Slow Train’, Flanders and Swann – the duo best remembered for mud and hippopotami – mourned its impending loss, along with the likes of Mow Cop, Dog Dyke, Windmill End and many others. As it turned out, Arram’s village station survived. More than 40 years later, it is part of a rail renaissance in rural Yorkshire.

In the last three years passenger numbers on the Yorkshire Coast Line have increased by around 50% thanks largely to the efforts of a project led by Humber and Wolds Rural Community Council (RCC). The turnaround has come about mostly as a result of simple improvements such as better car parks, CCTV and secure cycle racks – and some serious leafleting and local news coverage, says the RCC’s David Walford.

The project’s success has earned it awards and has also made it a jewel in the crown of the ‘21st Century Village’ initiative, a network of 38 RCCs involved in grassroots community action throughout England. The umbrella project has seen small communities seeking out practical ways of reducing their carbon emissions – most on a voluntary level. In Berkshire there’s a push on energy-saving lightbulbs; in the Tees Valley they’re helping village hall committees explore renewable energy alternatives for heating; while in Cornwall an RCC conference drew attention to global warming with an exhibition of underwear through the ages.

“Rural communities must face the challenge of climate change as much as urban areas. We have seen that many of them are able and keen to do so,” says Trevor Cherrett of the Commission for Rural Communities (CRC), the government’s rural policy advisor for England. But if we want to see this type of low carbon drive take off in rural England, he emphasises, we need to give it more encouragement. As programme manager for sustainable communities, he’s aware that these village pioneers often find themselves swimming against a tide of opinion that pigeonholes rural lifestyles as intrinsically unsustainable.

Research commissioned by the CRC shows that local government ‘sustainability appraisals ‘ of strategies and projects tend to take it as given that rural developments are the least sustainable option. In reality, the difference between the average country dweller’s carbon footprint and their urban equivalent is only 2.5% [see GF66, ‘Urban myths‘]. The studies also concluded that there is sadly no positive policy vision of how a sustainable rural community should be. Instead, strategies focus on protecting the countryside by concentrating new development in urban areas.

What we need is a more creative approach to planning and for policymakers to build a rural perspective into everything they do, says Cherrett. For that to happen, “we must accept that rural towns and villages offer wider economic and social benefits which deserve investment, rather than neglect.” He points out that rural land provides essential resources, such as water, minerals, and space for energy generation and waste disposal, as well as opportunities for carbon storage and capture, and for the production of biofuels and wind power. “Rural communities themselves have a key part to play,” he stresses. “Homes and workplaces can generate power, use waste-to-energy systems, and explore the potential of co-operative energy production and the integration of biodegradable waste management from agricultural and urban areas. All the signs are that many rural communities are well up for this.”

As a starter for ten for the government, he says, why not get as creative about rural eco-developments as the government is about new-build in towns? How about taking the ‘eco-towns’ concept and applying it to villages, or using it to re-invent existing small communities, he suggests. “There, people would be able to live, work and play in places which have proved to be popular for decades, while facing up fully to the carbon challenge.”

– Julian Rollins

The Commission for Rural Communities is a Forum for the Future partner.

20 March 2008

Julian Rollins