The Country Code and the ordering of countryside citizenship

ARTICLE IN PRESS

Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16 www.elsevier.com/locate/jrurstud

The Country Code and the ordering of countryside citizenship Gavin Parker Centre of Planning Studies, Department of Real Estate & Planning, The University of Reading, P.O. Box 219, Whiteknights, RG6 6AW, Reading, UK

Abstract The paper reviews the assembly of the Country Code and its wider project circulated to reify a particular construction of countryside citizenship. The Code can be read as an attempt to pursue a particular moral project and an effort to influence behaviour through the design of a particular regime of conduct. Numerous alterations, most recently in 2004, have not fundamentally changed the aims of the Code as first introduced in 1951; as such the new Code marks not a withdrawal from the attempted imposition of a uniform countryside citizenship but rather an extension and refinement of this project and a continuing influence on the production and consumption of rural space. It is argued that the revisions and wider changes in associated materials and mediation of the Code are indicative of the way that countryside politics is changing to reflect both a post-productivist and postfeudal countryside: a shift that is being performed on the part of government through a more managerialist and interventionist style of governance. r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Citizenship theory has tended to focus on the analysis of formal structures and legal rights and responsibilities (Held, 1989; Giddens, 1979; Marshall, 1950). This attention to formal citizenship has revealed that rules are contingent; they are contested, alter and are enforced unevenly through a series of legal measures and institutions. However, such work has also revealed that informal tools, as means of structuring citizenship and citizen behaviour, are in circulation, ranging from everyday signs, artifacts and warnings which structure behaviours and performativities (cf. Stevenson, 2001) to a range of semi-formal tools, such as codes of conduct that may be viewed as attempts to construct citizenship and to fashion the consumption (and production) of rural space (Matless, 1998a; Merriman, 2005; Soja, 1996). This extension of the range of thinking about citizenship and its maintenance parallels writings about governmentality and materiality which acknowledge the roles of numerous informal mechanisms and material Tel.: +44 118 3786460.

E-mail address: g.parker@rdg.ac.uk.

0743-0167/$ - see front matter r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2005.06.003

artifacts in structuring behaviour and in (re)constructing citizenship (Dean, 1996; Allen, 2003). However, little of this has been applied in rural studies and in the light of the growing interest in the assembly of citizenship the project of the English Country Code is used here as an example of semi-formal and informal ordering of citizenship (cf. Van Houtum et al., 2005). The Country Code has promoted particular behaviours and set out distinct ‘rules of conduct’ for those visiting the countryside in England and Wales.1 It is argued that this has been playing a prominent part in the construction of a contingent countryside citizenship in the UK since the 1950s (Parker, 2002).

In this paper the Country Code is examined as an attempt to normalise, maintain and reify a particularised countryside citizenship. In doing so the wider ‘Code project’ is viewed, from the genesis of the 1951 Code from the 1930s, up to the launch of the latest Code in July 2004, as well as examining alterations made in form

1 There have been separate Codes produced for England and Wales and this paper focuses on the English versions.

ARTICLE IN PRESS 2

G. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16

and content in 19712 and 1982 (National Parks Commission, 1951a; Countryside Commission, 1971, 1982; Countryside Agency, 2004b).3 Thus the Code project is viewed widely to include the associated text and promotional materials developed over time, rather than only focus on the set key messages that have anchored it. This assessment therefore includes changes in form, wider content and mediation of the Code and is placed in context here with associated countryside recreation policy iterations and in the light of wider rural political change.

The composition, tone and mediation of the Code has changed over time and several important passages in the history of the Code are examined here. It is argued that the various iterations of the Code reflect the shifting political fortunes of different groups with an interest in the countryside. The recent redrafting (rather than abolition) of the Code is also indicative of the New Labour political style being effected in the English countryside. The Code is seen as an instrumental part of the regime of rural governance that has constructed a dominant countryside citizenship. Therefore techniques and strategies of governance are considered here as the theoretical frame for the analysis of the Code project.

Firstly, a policy context, that helps situate the Code, is outlined which focuses on policy responses and resistance to wider pressures for access to the countryside in England.

2. ‘Softening the blow that never fell’: The Country Code and the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act During the 1930s and the early 1940s the challenge to private landowners’ exclusive use of land had been led by the emerging recreationalist movement that was seeking more space and associated recreational ‘rights’ in the countryside. This call for access rights intensified and the encouragement of the general public to use the countryside as a recreational resource had somewhat agitated landed interests. This was particularly so in terms of the feared cultural impact of outsiders and in contrast to claims for social justice from the working class (Rothman, 1982; Stephenson, 1989). A dominant 2 The changes made to the English Code in the late 1960s and published in 1971 are not well documented, yet the wider Code text was substantially revised, as was the form, presentation and mediation of the Code. What remained unchanged, however, were the ten key messages or maxims produced in 1951, as reproduced in Table 1.

3 Referred to hereafter as the Code. It is observed that the Code does not explicitly state what spaces are intended to fall within its gaze. In this sense the opacity of its reach potentially serves to further extend the range of the disciplinary power of the Code and indeed the associated materials leave the subject to internalize and apply the messages according to their own place perception.

view held by powerful rural elites viewed townspeople as ignorant of rural practices and economic necessities, as well as presenting a cultural inconvenience when ‘out of place’ in rural space (Cresswell, 1996; Joad, 1934, 1946; Cloke and Little, 1997). Matless (1998a, b) observes that the use of the countryside for leisure in the interwar period was seen by some as no less than ‘cultural trespass’ with different groups being seen as pollutants (Sheail, 1981) to a vision or experience of the countryside as ‘pure space’ (Sibley, 1995).

The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act (1949) was passed after a protracted political argument about rights over land and a lengthy parallel debate over affording special protection to certain cherished landscapes (Shoard, 1987, 1999; MacEwen and MacEwen, 1987; Parker and Ravenscroft, 1999).

Attempts to legislate to provide areas of recreational access land have been a feature of the Parliamentary schedule in the UK since the late 19th century, with numerous Bills presented for reading.4 The post-war Labour government promised a resolution to those struggles with a central undertaking of delivering a ‘right to roam’: a general public right of access to open land (see Shoard, 1999; Countryside Agency, 2002a).

This was to be enabled in parallel with the creation of National Parks, following the recommendations of the Dower Report on that subject in 1945 (MTCP, 1945).

After a lengthy struggle through the Parliamentary process the 1949 Act was passed but without the general right of access over open land—the ‘right to roam’ had been controversially dropped in favour of a voluntary approach (for a full account of this see; Cherry (1977), Blunden and Curry (1989), and Parker and Ravenscroft (1999). The government of the time were persuaded that access would be granted voluntarily by landowners without recourse to a general right of access.

Despite such a right to roam failing to materialise, other measures relating to countryside access were included in the Act, for example; the enablement of Access Agreements and Orders (see Shoard, 1987; Curry, 1994) and, central to this paper, the incorporation of a ‘publicity clause’ (Clause 86 parts 1(b) & 2) on ‘educating the public’ in the countryside (Ministry of Transport, 1949). This clause was added to mitigate the effect of the anticipated new rights of access through an associated campaign of instruction and ‘education’. The Code was to form part of the conditions of widened access brokered by the post-war government. Despite the limited extension of access under the 1949 Act the clause remained and was acted upon by government through the Ministry of Town and Country Planning.

The behavioural approach presaged by the clause was to 4 By the outbreak of WWII a bill had passed onto the statute book; the 1939 Access to Mountains Act (for a fuller account of legislative attempts prior to 1939, see; Chapter 2 in Blunden and Curry (1989).

ARTICLE IN PRESS G. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16

be effected through the creation of a Country Code, as well as the deployment of National Park wardens and marketing materials aimed at regulating behaviour. This clause represents a subtle form of sumptuary regulation aimed at restricting ‘extravagant’ behaviour on the part of visitors to the countryside. This is a specific method of disciplinary mediation where groups are targeted and their behaviours curtailed on the grounds, for example, of conspicuous, (and possibly politically destabilising) consumption (Hunt, 1996; Gibbard et al., 1999). The 1949 Act can be seen as being less about the governing of the right to access but management of the activity and the performance of recreation in rural space; based on pre-existing rights and practices.

Prior to the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act (1949) several calls for better education of the public about behaviour in the countryside had been voiced. The Dower report (MTCP, 1945, para. 44) on national parks refers to the need for public education about the countryside and the Hobhouse (sub-committee) report (MTCP, 1947) on footpaths and access to the countryside recommended that a country code be published to encourage responsible behaviour in the countryside (Cherry, 1977, p. 62). The conclusion of that report also asserted that: Much of the ill feeling which has existed in the past has been due to ignorance or thoughtless behaviour on the part of some townsmen. This we believe could be considerably reduced by persistent educational efforts. We accordingly recommend that a simple Country Code be prepared and issued. Its object should be to evoke a better all round standard of responsible behaviour in the countryside and to instill a greater appreciation of the ways and needs of rural life, and the inter-dependence of town and country (MTCP, 1947, p. 44).

These calls were ignored by the sitting Attlee government and the enabling publicity clause was actually included as an amendment to the 1948 National Parks & Access to the Countryside Bill.5 Once established on the statute book a series of other preexisting rules and codes, with a degree of established moral authority, were used by the publicity committee in drafting the 1951 Code. Notably they drew from a seven point Ramblers’ Code6 that had been produced by the Ramblers’ Association prior to World War Two, the 5 This clause was added by the Tory peer Earl de La Warr when the Bill was read in the House of Lords (Hansard, 1949b) following ‘representations from agricultural interests’, apparently with the ‘NFU or CLA briefing bill sponsors directly’ (MAFF, 1950).

6 The Ramblers’ Code was produced prior to WWII, but the exact date of publication is open to some question. For example, there is no mention of the Code in the Rambler’s Companion published 1937 (Gordon, 1937) but by 1939 the Code was being promoted by the Ramblers’ Association through the press (Morris, 1939).

3

Open Spaces Society’s ‘Country Code’ and the code of courtesy produced by the Campaign for the Preservation of Rural England in the 1940s (Ramblers’ Association, 1954, 1953; Open Spaces Society, 1945).

The Code project was seen by the newly formed National Parks Commission (NPC) as a means of countering National Park opposition experienced during the passage of the 1949 Act (Hansard, 1949a, b). The farmers, through the National Farmers Union (NFU), had already been openly unhappy about National Park designation, let alone the proposed ‘right to roam’ (as eventually evidenced by its failure to make it into the 1949 legislation). They viewed a potential influx of tourists and day-trippers with some horror; both in terms of numbers of visitors and with regard to the specific places that such visitors might use. This backdrop led the specially formed publicity sub-committee7 to undertake that ‘the Country Code should be brought to the notice of farmers as often as possible as evidence of the work the Commission is trying to do to educate public opinion’ (National Parks Commission, 1953, minute 77(2)). This also demonstrated a conciliatory response made on the behalf of farmers and other rural interests; not against the expected wave of visitors that the proposed ‘right to roam’ could prompt (see Shoard, 1999; Joad, 1946), but towards the existing users and new visitors that national parks might attract.

3. The Country Code and its changing constructions of countryside citizenship At the inception stage of the first Country Code the lists of behavioural exhortations developed by key interest groups were not only received as a signal of implicit support for the Code project but were used to produce the first draft of the Code in early 1950. The publicity sub-committee organised a ‘Code conference’ on June 12th 1950 and invited 17 organisations to participate (National Parks Commission, 1951b). Many of the organisations invited had already been attempting to instill particular behaviours into their memberships and several organisations submitted their own codes of conduct, relating to visitors in the countryside, to the committee at this stage. By early July 1950 the NFU had also sent a long open letter to the Committee in the form of a ‘draft code’ (National Parks Commission, 1950b).

Intermittently throughout the design and revision of the draft Code concerns over the need to draw a distinction between rural and urban were expressed. For example, Sir Ifan ab Owen Edwards, one of the subcommittee members, indicated on numerous occasions 7 The Code was prepared through the work of a publicity subcommittee of the National Parks Commission under the chairmanship of John Allen (National Parks Commission, 1950a).

ARTICLE IN PRESS 4

G. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16

that he was upset at the lack of stress on the ‘way of life’ element in the early Code drafts and wrote to this effect to the sub-committee on 28th September 1950. Only a few weeks earlier he had emphasised ‘country living’ as an important message for the Code (National Parks Commission, 1950b). Echoing his views the first annual report of the National Parks Commission (NPC), published in December 1950, rehearsed this point; that the Code would enable country visitors ‘better to understand the country way of life’ (National Parks Commission, 1950a, p. 5). In the same report the NPC saw the Code as ‘a core around which will grow a body of information services about the countryside, whose aim will be over the years to offer a contribution towards a better understanding and good citizenship’ (National Parks Commission, 1950a).

The process of assembling the 1951 Code took a little over a year between March 1950 and May 1951, during which time six drafts of the Code and supporting text were produced. As the text of the Code was honed the committee agreed that negativity was to be minimised and they endeavoured to avoid patronising potential readers. Details such as the price of the pamphlet and whom to approach to write the preface were also debated.8 The organisation of artwork, by James Lucas, and the consideration of the other forms of promotional material and media forms to be used formed a substantial part of the committee’s business. (NPC, 1951c) Eventually the Code was launched on the 11th May 1951 (see also Plate 1) with the following ten maxims or messages at its core: Guard against all risk of fire Fasten all gates Keep dogs under proper control Keep to the paths across farm land Avoid damaging fences, hedges and walls Leave no litter Safeguard water supplies Protect wild life, wild plants and trees Go carefully on country roads Respect the life of the countryside (National Parks Commission, 1951a, p. 21).

By 1954 over 48,000 copies of the Code had been sold (National Parks Commission, 1954) with more than 70,000 being purchased by 1959 (Abrahams, 1959) and a further figure of 100,000 being recorded by 1964 (NPC, 1964). The Code was seen as the platform and legitimising text from which other materials could be designed. Subsequently numerous leaflets, posters and other media were produced in different forms and for 8 G.M. Trevelyan, the eminent social historian, was persuaded to write the foreword to the Code with the preferred tone of this preface being indicated to him by the sub-committee (NPC, 1951b).

Plate 1. Front page of the 1951 Country Code booklet. Image reproduced courtesy of the Countryside Agency.

different audiences as part of the larger Code project.

Since then countless further reproductions have been made on cards, leaflets, badges, guidebooks, cereal packets, games and other government guidance, such as the Highway Code (Merriman, 2005). The Code has been promoted through TV adverts and programme features, radio broadcasts and workplace roadshows on the subject of countryside (mis)behaviour.

The Code was aimed primarily at people living in towns and cities and a particular emphasis was placed on educating children.9 The targetting of the urban population was justified on the basis of differential rural knowledges; ‘Townsmen’ or ‘Townees’ were perceived as lacking a certain cultural competency (cf. OSS, 1945; Parker, 2002; Cloke et al., 1998). Both adults and children were seen as subjects needing education and 9 For example, Lord Carrington, Deputy Chairman of the CLA, addressed a press conference on the National Parks & Access to the Countryside Act on 29th December 1949. On the country code he said it would be impractical to have notices and keepers everywhere, and the code would provide the necessary education to prevent this need. It should be aimed at townsman, and to form part of the curriculum at all schools (see Journal of the Land Agents’ Society Vol. 49 (2), February 1950; also Gruffudd, 1996; The Guardian 2004).

ARTICLE IN PRESS G. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16

both groups should be taught to adopt new, codified behaviours that would be in harmony with ‘country life’ and allow for an understanding of ‘the true nature of the countryside’ (Turner, 1951; The Times, 1951). In this way the Code was to serve an important function in delineating, as much as integrating, rural and urban citizenships. The outcome has been to position users ‘outside’ of the rural even when present in rural spaces.

The 1951 Code underscored a phase of rural governance, reinforcing the position of the farmer/ landowner as steward following the Agriculture Act 1947 (see Winter, 1996). The user groups on the other hand had not achieved much by way of new access rights, but had actively engaged with the adoption of a code designed to ensure that particular actions and behaviours were managed. So much was the enthusiasm for the Country Code that membership of the Ramblers’ Association was conditional on agreeing to observe the tenets of Code until the early 1980s (de Moore, 2004; Ramblers’ Association, 1954). Demonstrating a similar attitude when the Code was published, the Open Spaces Society (1951, p. 91) were moved to say that: ‘though a ‘‘code’’ it is not a penal code; non-observance of any of its suggestions involves no penalties, but it does imply that the offender has in that respect failed in citizenship, and as a self-respecting and considerate member of the community’.

The 1951 Code remained unchanged in terms of the text of the central messages until 1982, yet the wider project was extended and new media forms were added to the standard booklet. This included the use of the Country Code logo by the Post Office on their franking machines during the mid-1960s10 (NPC, 1964, 1965, 1966). While it is difficult to assess the actual impact that the Code had on the general public, the intent of both government and various interest groups was to indicate right action, and in so doing limit freedom of expression and a curtailment of behaviours in order to confirm a particularised conception of the rural. Despite these efforts there is some evidence of the Code failing to reach the whole population, with one correspondent writing in The Times in 1962, about rural vandalism and petty theft, asking ‘would the answer be the existence of a country code’ (The Times, 1962, p. 10).

4. The 1971 and 1982 revisions: ‘improving behaviour in the countryside’ Although previously unreported the Country Code booklet and supporting material were revised in 1971 with work on preparing an updated text beginning as 10 The Post Office estimated that it had sent over 20 million letters bearing the Country Code logo (and one of the key maxims) in the Summer of 1966 alone (NPC, 1966, p. 32).

5

Plate 2. Front page of the 1971 Country Code booklet. Image reproduced courtesy of the Countryside Agency.

early as 1967. The 1951 Code text was deemed by the NPC to be in need of updating by the late 1960s. This was not only seen as a presentational revision, but also involved the content and message of the Code document being reoriented. Resource constraints and the abolition of the NPC, and its replacement by the Countryside Commission in 1968, delayed production of the revised Code. The 1968 joint annual report of the NPC and the Countryside Commission indicates that revisions were still being undertaken; ‘redrafting is now in progress and the new code should be ready for 1969’ (NPC and Countryside Commission, 1968, p. 34). This aspiration was not realised on time but the Code booklet was eventually produced in 1971 with new artwork and a modified text (see Plate 2), although the ten key maxims remained intact from the 1951 booklet.11 Since 1951 numerous local and national interest-based organisations had been altering and amending the published Code, including rewording the ten main points, and were producing their own versions to reflect their own attitudes, or as a result of pressure to change the Code 11 It is assumed that an over-riding focus on the ten messages is why other analysts and historians have not recognised the 1971 revisions.

ARTICLE IN PRESS 6

G. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16

to suit their own interest group views. This was part of the reason that, according to the Countryside Commission, ‘the new booklet had been needed for some time’ and they claimed that ‘a different approach was necessary to get the code to a new and wider readership’.

They also stated that ‘accordingly a more colourful, shorter, booklet was prepared for issue, like other Country Code campaign material, free of charge’ (Countryside Commission, 1971a, p. 43).

The 1971 Code booklet uses a somewhat garish modern style with oversized animals and bright colours used throughout. The redrafted text reflected an increasing awareness and concern about the environment and the booklet includes reference to conservation and pollution issues, as well as explicitly placing farming in a business context. For example, on the ‘Protect wildlife, wild plants and trees’ pages the text opens with the statement ‘Wildlife in Britain is under attack from many sides—from pesticides, pollution and the destruction of habitat.’ (Countryside Commission, 1971b, no pagination). Predictably this attracted a hostile response from the agro-chemical industry who wrote to the Countryside Commission arguing that the negative effects of pesticides were unproven and that the benefits to agriculture were enormous in terms of productivity; hence the negative inference should be removed. Indeed this passage was excised in the 1982 version. On some pages visitors’ actions are linked to costs with economic measurements of potential damage caused by users placed alongside several of the key messages as ‘money note’ captions. One such caption on the ‘fasten all gates’ pages reads: ‘A dairy cow costs around £120, a heifer maybe £90, while sheep are about £8 each; if they were yours you’d probably want them under lock and key’ (Countryside Commission, 1971b, no pagination).

Similarly on the ‘Keep to paths across farmland’ page the money note advises: ‘to take a short cut through a field of crops may save you time but costs a farmer money. The average yield of an acre of wheat is over £45, oats and barley about £35 and hay about £20’ (Countryside Commission, 1971b, no pagination). In this way the Code begins to highlight economic costs, as well as the social and cultural effects, of recreation beyond that demonstrated in the 1951 booklet.

The 1971 version of the Code and its associated marketing campaign did attract some other criticism and soon after the new booklet was published voices of dissent were heard. Members of the public wrote to the Commission to complain about the imagery—in particular the ‘unrealistic’ animals and the ‘unnatural’ colours being used were targets for criticism. The new Code logo of a stylised tree was also lambasted, with one civil servant teasing the Commission that the logo ‘look[ed] more like an advert for heart surgery’ than a representation of rurality (Countryside Commission, 1976). The Code was promoted in the media in the 1970s

through a new campaign featuring Joe: a Yorkshireman wearing a string vest and sporting a handkerchief on his head. Joe was accompanied by his rather rotund partner Petunia. These figures were to be used to demonstrate what not to do in the countryside in a rather comical, if not outright offensive, way. The campaign was characterised by the Countryside Commission as ‘yan extravagantly ignorant couple of country-goers known as Joe and Petunia’ (Countryside Commission, 1971, p.

42) with the aim apparently to stigmatise people behaving incorrectly a la Joe and Petunia. Organisations such as the Ramblers’ Association were also complaining that the Code was too one sided and the implicit attack on the working class exacerbated the ‘them and us’ feeling of class antagonism existing around the access debate. The Ramblers’ Association had already begun lobbying for the inclusion of a parallel ‘Farmers’ Code’ by the late 1960s (Hall, 1969, 1973), indicating an overt problematisation of land owners’ behaviours towards users. This point of conflict was not resolved and led to the Ramblers’ Association dropping observance of the Country Code as a stipulation of membership after the 1982 Code revisions failed to include behavourial guidance for farmers and landowners.

Another bone of contention from as far back as 1950 was the ‘fasten all gates’ line that was included in the Code in 1951. This despite warnings in 1950 by agricultural interests and bureaucrats from the Ministry of Agriculture that it was flawed. The line had led to complaints from farmers that people were fastening gates even when they were not supposed to (The Times, 1962). A typical example was where a farmer wanted livestock to migrate from one field to another and had deliberately left a gate open—yet on finding the open gate conscientious walkers or riders were diligently shutting the gate, much to the annoyance of the farmer.

One reading of this is that the imposed ‘common sense’ of the Code over-rode the lived, lay or practical knowledge that may have prevailed without the Code.

It is difficult to determine why the Countryside Commission in 1971 (and again in 1982) did not amend this line, despite continuing complaints from farmers and ramblers’ and in the face of specific advice on this point from the CPRE (Countryside Commission, 1979; Gear, 2004).

By the late 1970s the Countryside Commission had decided to review the Code again, stating that ‘yit was becoming apparent to the Commission that there was some disagreement about whether the advice in the Code was still continuing to meet modern circumstances’ (Countryside Commission, 1979, p. 6). The Commission formed a Country Code Review Study Group, chaired by Claud Bicknell, to ‘review the Code and its promotion as a means of improving visitor behaviour in the countryside’ (Countryside

ARTICLE IN PRESS G. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16

Commission, 1979, p. 2). By December 1979 the Country Code Review Study Group had produced the Review of the Country Code: a consultation paper (Countryside Commission, 1979) after meeting together on four occasions between July 1978 and 1979 (Bicknell, 1981). The Group viewed their role as part of a statutory requirement for the Commission to produce a code for visitors, with the emphasis placed on educating urban visitors. Its terms of reference were ‘to review the Country Code and its promotion as a means of improving visitor behaviour in the countryside’ (Countryside Commission, 1979, p. 2). The review document reflects on comments received by the Commission in years prior to the review being announced and input from the 17-strong membership of the Group itself.

Some parties consulted by the Group had felt that the Code messages should remain unchanged, notably some county councils, while others felt the Code to be ‘negative and authoritarian’ (Countryside Commission, 1979, p. 8). Other correspondence looked at by the Group suggested that up to seven additional messages be considered. These were diverse suggestions relating to: the use of firearms, illegal camping, obstructive car parking, the use of metal detectors and horse riding ‘by large numbers of urban residents’ (Countryside Commission, 1979, p. 9). The latter suggesting that urbanites were unlikely to be competent riders, and perhaps reflecting the growth in liveries catering for towndwelling pony owners.

The consultation paper produced in 1979 acknowledges that calls for separate Codes had been voiced and reiterated the point: ‘there is widespread opinion that the message of the Country Code should be directed and applicable to the whole community, including farmers and other rural residents who, it is said, regularly ignore the underlying message which they would have visitors obey’ (Countryside Commission, 1979, p. 7). The review group went on to indicate that there could be a case for multiple codes: ‘a further variation on this argument is for a set of different and more explicit codes, each designed for a different audience and different surroundings’ (Countryside Commission, 1979, p. 8). The acknowledgement of such issues indicates a recognition, begun in the 1971 revisions, about changing attitudes to the expertise of farmers. The group also suggested that a revised Code should be given a more positive emphasis, echoing the original intentions of the publicity committee in 1950. The shift in 1971 was made to reflect a shift towards balancing the rights and opportunities for users with existing, and less encouraging, exhortations.

Despite the early calls for more radical change the 1982 Code retained its focus on users only and the tone of the key messages, although edited (see Plate 3 and Table 1) remained similar to the 1951 version. The finished list of 12 key points were the result of an attempt to reflect popular phraseology of the day, and

7

Plate 3. Front page of the 1982 Country Code booklet. Image reproduced courtesy of the Countryside Agency.

the edit attempts to maintain a receptive audience for the internalisation of the central messages. The points were also reordered with the exhortation to ‘enjoy the countryside’ being added to the ‘respect the life of the countryside’ line and promoted to the top of the list of points rather than its original position at the foot of the 1951 and 1971 lists. One of the two new lines was the ‘make no unnecessary noise’ line which was added partly by the promptings of the CPRE who insisted that, due to ‘the impact of modern technology’ on the countryside, such a reminder was necessary (Dobsen, 1979). The other new addition was ‘leave livestock, crops and machinery alone’ and reflected concern about potential economic loses incurred as a result of visitor actions and an associated feeling that crime was on the increase in the countryside.

The re-emphasis of certain aspects of the Code and the playing down of other elements is of interest here.

For example, the addition of the word ‘public’ to the line ‘keep to paths across farmland’ indicates the conflict between farmers and Ramblers’, in particular over rights

ARTICLE IN PRESS G. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16

8

Table 1 Comparison of 1951 and 1982 key Code messages 1951 Code—10 key messages

1982 Code—12 key messages

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

Guard against all risk of fire Fasten all gates Keep dogs under proper control Keep to the paths across farm land Avoid damaging fences, hedges and walls Leave no litter Safeguard water supplies Protect wild life, wild plants and trees Go carefully on country roads Respect the life of the countryside

Enjoy the Countryside and respect its life and work (10, amended) Guard against risk of fire (1) Fasten all gates (2) Keep your dogs under close control (3) Keep to the public paths across farmland (4) Use gates and stiles to cross fences, hedges and walls (5) Leave livestock, crops and machinery alone (New) Take your litter home (6) Help to keep all water clean (7) Protect wildlife, plants and trees (8) Take special care on country roads (9) Make no unnecessary noise (New)

Source: Based on Countryside Commission, 1982: no pagination; National Parks Commission, 1951a, p. 21.

of way and other unregistered paths. Elsewhere the removal of particular turns of phrase make the code tenets more immediately obvious in their meaning, for example, ‘Safeguard water supplies’ in the 1951 Code, maintained in 1971, is replaced with a more direct ‘Help to keep water clean’ in 1982. Other alterations attempt to make the Code appear less formal and conversational. In terms of visual format however the 1982 Code uses more sober, colour photographs of country scenes along with more restrained cartoon-style lithographs.

These cosmetic measures mark somewhat of a retreat from the 1971 Code’s richly coloured and rather comic style as depicted in Plate 2.

The 1982 revisions reflect certain changes in attitude, for example, a frustration that the tenets of the 1951 Code had been ignored by some of the population12 (cf.

The Times, 1962). Seeking to revise the Code and trying to publicise it more widely, or to use a wider diversity of materials is a signification of the need to mirror popular culture and to make use of as many media forms as possible to permeate the public consciousness; even if the Code booklet remained largely unread or otherwise not internalised. The calls by the Ramblers’ Association (Hall, 1980) and the National Trust (1978) to produce codes directed at different groups, particularly farmers and landowners, was not incorporated in 1982. Instead the lobbying of landowning and occupying interests resisted the shift, with the NFU writing to the study group to explain that they: ‘did not feel convinced that there was a necessity to direct the code at country people and farmers themselves’ (NFU, 1980).

It is notable that just as the Countryside Commission was finalising the revised Code it was discussed in a 12 Although perhaps unsurprising, it is a consistent theme in the history of countryside access, with a reported ten percent of visitors apparently presenting a problem to land managers in the early 1990s (Cox et al., 1996, p. 209).

House of Lords debate over the Wildlife and Countryside Bill in March 1981. At that time an amendment was tabled by Lord (Peter) Melchett suggesting a change to the wording and scope of the Country Code publicity clause, under section 2(8) of the 1968 Countryside Act (clause 86 of the 1949 Act had been incorporated by the 1968 Act). Melchett explicitly wanted to see a phrase that balanced responsibilities with rights. His suggested, and eventually accepted, wording in the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 for the Code’s ambit was as follows: ‘yfor explaining to people visiting the countryside their rights and responsibilities’. This replaced: ‘yfor encouraging a proper standard of behaviour on the part of people resorting to the countryside’ as found in the 1968 Act (House of Lords, 1981). This shift in balance partly reflected the criticisms of the Code as levelled by the Ramblers’ and paved the way for the supplementary advice and information for the public prepared in the 1980s and 1990s by the Countryside Commission (and its successor Countryside Agency).

The 1981 amendment did prompt the Commission to debate changing the Code in April 1984 (Countryside Commission, 1984) but instead of revising the Code numerous other documents such as the Access Charter of 1985 (Countryside Commission, 1985; and see Curry, 1994), Managing public access: a guide for farmers and landowners (Countryside Commission, 1994) and Out in the Country. Where you can go and what you can do (Countryside Commission, 1992) were produced setting out the (legal) rights and responsibilities of all parties, without actually reworking the Code tenets. Thus the Commission found numerous alternative methods and materials for balancing the apparent inequality of the Code and bridging the gap that had opened between the legislative basis for the Code and the 1982 version, (as well as attempting to promote wider recreational use and provision through voluntary and grant-based means).

ARTICLE IN PRESS G. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16

5. The CRoW act 2000 and the extension of moral authority With the election of a Labour government in the UK in 1997 it appeared that a manifesto pledge to extend countryside access provision would be fulfilled. Indeed the long running debate about open access and the ‘right to roam’, left unresolved by the 1949 Act, was brought to a degree of resolution with the passing of the Countryside and Rights of Way (CRoW) Act in November 2000. The growing economic importance of leisure and tourism in rural areas had been recognised more fully by the 1990s (Countryside Commission, 1991). Despite decades of investment in National Parks, various forms of access agreements and grant schemes, Country Parks and rights of way improvements the arguments over rights of access had never entirely died away (Shoard, 1999; Cherry, 1977; Curry, 1994). In terms of access and recreation the CRoW Act has been promoted by the government as invoking ‘a new countryside contract’ (Countryside Agency, 2002a–e, p.

4) for countryside recreation; ostensibly between the public and land managers. Part of this contract is expressed in terms of rights distributions, but also with an invitation to users, potential users, residents and land manager groups to behave in particular ways and thus it continues the tradition of overlaying formal regulation such as legislation with semiformal, such as codes of conduct and other informal materials and practices.

The CRoW Act is comprised of five parts,13 Part I of the Act concerns new countryside access provisions and the definition and management of the ‘right to roam’ access lands (see Parker and Ravenscroft, 2001; Riddall and Trevelyan, 2001). The Act also found room to revise the basis for the Country Code once again.14 In this regard the CRoW Act (2000) stipulates that: it shall be the duty of the Countryside Agency to issue, and from time to time revise, a code of conduct for the guidance of persons exercising the rights conferredyand of persons interested in access land, and to take such other steps as appear to them expedient for securing (a) that the public are informed of the situation and extent of, and means of access to, access land, and (b) that the public and persons interested in access land are informed of their 13 The Act relates to; public rights of way and road traffic, nature conservation and wildlife enforcement, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and, other miscellaneous provisions.

14 In an echo from the 1949 Act and the publicity clause which prompted the 1951 Code (s20), the new Code clause was added during the passage of the CRoW bill. It was inserted as an amendment to the Bill by Lord Whitty the government spokesman in October 2000 (House of Lords, 2000). It is interesting then to note that it was the Government itself that introduced the Code clause, rather than an intervention from the backbenches or opposition politicians.

9

respective rights and obligationsy (CRoW Act 2000 section 20 (1)—author’s emphasis).

Given the new emphasis on those ‘interested in access land’ the Code would need to reflect this widened consideration, particularly given the pre-existing pressure from the Ramblers’ Association about directing behavioural messages towards land managers. Prior to royal assent preparatory work had begun on a new Code. The first paper tabled by the Countryside Agency (CA) on the subject was as early as September 2000 (Countryside Agency, 2000a). The debate was overseen by the Countryside Agency board and the National Countryside Access Forum (NCAF)15 and by December 2000 numerous discussions had taken place over the form and content of the new Code. One of the key issues was whether or not to produce separate user and land manager codes, or alternatively to aim one code at both groups (Countryside Agency, 2000b, c). The CA envisaged that a new Code might be produced in time for the 2001 Summer holidays. This proved too hopeful an estimate with discussions about the Code running through to 2003 at both the Countryside Agency board and NCAF. The discussions tended to broadly mirror the debates that had taken place in 1949–1951, for example; the feeling reported to the Agency’s board in February 2003 was that the 1982 Code was felt to be ‘dictatorial’ and ‘dated’ (Countryside Agency, 2003b, c). By early 2003 the Agency had received invited views from numerous organisations including: English Nature, the National Farmers Union, the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), the National Trust, the Ramblers’ Association, the Youth Hostels Association, and various National Park Authorities. The changes suggested endorsed a two-pronged approach that included a code of conduct for the land manager as well as for the user.

Concerns were expressed, and indeed protest was voiced, by land managing interests about the proposed shift to a twin-track Code. They felt that the move could expose them to challenge and claims for redress from the user groups. Pressure from the users interest was kept up with Kate Ashbrook of the Open Opaces Society (and Ramblers’ Association), claiming that a ‘Code for landowners and occupiers is needed more than one for visitors’ (Ashbrook, 2003).

After almost three years of discussion the Countryside Agency launched a formal consultation exercise in the Spring of 2003 (Countryside Agency, 2003a, b) which resulted in a dual code and a revised Countryside Agency schedule for the new Code to be produced prior 15 NCAF—National Countryside Access Forum. This was set up to act as a standing advisory board on the implementation of the provisions of the recreational elements of the CRoW Act and other related countryside access matters. Minutes of the NCAF are found at: www.countryside.gov.uk/WiderWelcome/NCAF/index.asp.

ARTICLE IN PRESS 10

G. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16

Plate 4. Front page of the 2004 Countryside Code booklet.

Reproduced courtesy of Countryside Agency. Image (c) Aardman Animation Ltd. 2004.

to September 2004; in time for the launch of the first tranche of access lands enabled under CRoW Act (Countryside Agency, 2003b, 2004a–c).16 The 2004 Code took almost four years of discussion to produce and significantly incorporates the 30 year-old aim of the Ramblers’ Association—namely to provide a template for good behaviour for land managers and for the full implementation of the Melchett clause in the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Thus the new Code launched in July 2004 covers both the resource user and the manager in a single booklet setting out a ‘dual’ code and with a second publication which sets out the legal rights and responsibilities of both the user and the land manager (see Plate 4; Countryside Agency, 2004b, c). It builds on the earlier efforts made during the 1990s to ensure that users’ rights, as well as responsibilities, were exercised and understood more fully. The 2004 dual 16

The CRoW Act 2000 access provisions were subject to the mapping of the new ‘access lands’. This process was initiated in 2001 with the first areas being confirmed, and access being available, from 19th September 2004.

Code is styled as the ‘Countryside Code—advice for the public’ and ‘Countryside Code—advice for land managers’. It sets out five points directed at the public and three for the land managing interest, as shown in Table 2.

There is an immediate disparity between setting out five points for users and only three for managers, reflecting perhaps only a gradual withdrawal from the tendency towards regulating users. The 2004 version bears little resemblance to the 1951 Code, or even the later iterations of 1971 and 1982. The style of the Code is distinctly populist, using Aardman Animation LtdTM17 animated characters to promote the new Code.

As with the previous Codes the 2004 version attempts to delineate between different behaviours and activities and may be read as an attempt at the maintenance of rural place identity. The Code enjoys its own website with extensive supporting material (see www.countrysideaccess.gov.uk) beyond the folded, paper leaflet form of the Code, the front cover of which is shown in Plate 4.

The new Code is as much about a new managerial stewardship as it is about recreation and traditional land-based activity is placed alongside other activities as legitimate subjects for authority and the imposition of behaviouralist exhortations. The shift in regulatory approach is perhaps a reflection of the erosion of trust in land managers since the 1980s and perhaps, particularly since the media storms concerning Bovine Spongiform Encephalitus (BSE) and the Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) outbreak of 2001 (Donaldson et al., 2002); the latter of which helped underscore the importance of leisure and tourism to the rural economy and, by association, access for recreation.

6. The Country Code and governmentality Many rural sociologists have pointed to the dangers of assuming continuity and homogeneity in the countryside and rural spaces have been presented as ‘differentiated’ rural spaces, featuring a multiplicity of groups and a variety of often competing voices (Cloke and Little, 1997; Milbourne, 1997), as well as exhibiting uneven pressures for change (Goodwin and Painter, 1996; Murdoch et al., 2003) and variable access to services. This diversity between and within places has led to significant tension and intermittent conflict (as well as an extensive literature on such conflict that has developed over the past twenty years or so). For example, Woods (1997, p. 321) argues that struggles 17 The Oscar-winning animation company, renowned for the Wallace and GromitTM and Creature ComfortsTM films. The cartoon adverts have been shown in cinemas and were available for viewing on the Countryside Agency website from July 2004, see: www.countrysideaccess. gov.uk.

ARTICLE IN PRESS G. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16

11

Table 2 The 2004 ‘dual’ code messages Advice for the public

Advice for land managers

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

1. Know your rights, responsibilities and liabilities 2. Make it easy for visitors to act responsibly 3. Identify possible threats to user behaviour

Be safe—plan ahead and follow any signs Leave gates and property as you find them Protect plants and animals, and take your litter home Keep dogs under close control Consider other people

take place between those ‘who have invested financially and emotionally in their construct of the rural’, and others with competing constructs and investments; some of whom are living and working in towns and cities. A struggle is constantly underway where dominant rural groups seek to defend themselves against alternative constructions generated by competing groups based in and outside of rural space (but whose interest is rooted in some aspect of rural space or activity). On reflecting on this it is argued here that the Country Code project was constructed to defend particular groups and spaces and to formalise a particular conception of appropriate practice—originally to placate landowning interests in the post-war era who were in dread of the wider population exercising a right to roam—an fear that was unfulfilled (and a measure never implemented until 2000).

The development and changes to the Code over time provides a useful vehicle through which to chart the shifting power relations between those seeking to defend and reconstruct ruralities and to influence countryside citizenship. It has been argued that partnering the disparate array of competing interests the practice of rural (micro)politics has involved the creation, manipulation and control of a diffuse set of instruments and tactics deployed to ‘see off’ challenges to interest-based positions and linked rural imaginations. These constructs serve as symbolic and lived expressions of the practice of either a ‘defensive’ rural citizenship, or they may be appropriated by alternative interests that actively seek change as part of more progressive ruralities. Both enrol numerous materials and histories and talk of different conceptions of ‘rights’ which rest, not only on legal definitions but, on moral, environmental or social justifications as legitimating devices (Blomley, 1994; Parker, 2002). Some such materials and artifacts are themselves fought over as key instruments of influence and are subjected to differential historical attachment or some other process of revision (Crouch and Parker, 2003). In this view the Country Code may be seen as one such tool that has been constructed, promoted and shaped by competing interests. The Code has simultaneously been devised as a uniform and standardising instrument of governmentality which, as a

result of diversity and change in the countryside, has strained to regulate differentiated identities, practices and behaviours in those rural spaces.18 Dean (1996) sees attempts to control behaviour in this way as part of a moral project and as a moral regulatory strategy that is itself wrapped into a wider ‘regime of conduct’ where numerous techniques and materials are circulated. The relative lack of attention paid to the means by which governance has been prosecuted or managed through material intermediaries and mobile inscriptions such as; leaflets, posters, stickers, games and other ephemera is perhaps surprising. Dean indicates that a wide range of influences are necessary concerns for studies of governmentality including ‘books of manners and etiquette’ (Dean, 1996, p. 217). Such codes, regulations and exhortations towards particular citizenships are important technologies and are often reflected in explicit and directed ‘aspirations to achieve certain outcomes in terms of the conduct of the governed’ (Rose, 1999a, p. 52). They can be ‘placed’ as simultaneously in process and as outcomes of complex networks of wider moral and political projects (Whatmore, 2002; Parker and Ravenscroft, 2001; Macnaghten and Urry, 1998). Supporting this assertion Allen (2003), in assessing Rose’s (1999a, b) work, argues that assemblages, such as the Country Code, aim to encourage the internalisation of appropriate behaviours through the mobilisation of bias. This process may play on myth, supposition and the calculation of people’s willingness to accept and internalise disciplinary discourse: the exercise of authority [requires]ya willingness on the part of others to believe and not find fault with the attitudes and sentiments expressed. As such, the claims must strike a chord with existing attitudes, interests and beliefs among sections of the population (Allen, 2003, p. 147).

18 The Code in this sense is a hybrid criteria-based regulation and a spatial regulation that is carefully packaged and crafted to appear commonsensical or beyond the usual reach of policy critique (and another reason why such forms and materials may be regarded as important research subjects).

ARTICLE IN PRESS 12

G. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16

This appears very similar to accounts of successful hegemonic projects that involve manoeuvres made to garner a degree of critical control and the creation of ‘a terrain more favourable to the dissemination of certain modes of thought’ (Gramsci, 1971, p. 184). A Foucauldian view routinely excavated from Discipline and Punish posits that the individual becomes part of the system of governance and that ‘ythe individual is carefully fabricated in it [the social order] according to a whole technique of forces and bodies’ (Foucault, 1977, p. 217). The agent in these accounts is encouraged to internalise messages, and their implications, and to view the discourse as commonsensical, normalised or perhaps unavoidable.

This appeal to commonsense is a consistent feature of the Country Code project and is praised as such by different interests. For example, Lord Chorley (a member of the Dower committee) was reported, in 1953, in the House of Lords praising the Code as ‘the best fourpenny-worth of common sense he had ever read’ (The Times, 1953, p. 3) and in 1980 The Field magazine stated that ‘Commonsense, and the code is certainly that to anyone who understands the countryside, is perfect theory in its simplest form’ (The Field, 1980, p. 1). The various iterations of the Code have sought, if unevenly, to keep pace with social and political change and popular cultural tastes. These are attempts to refine the parameters of good (and deviant) citizenship and to produce the necessary ‘bespoke regulation’ that Rhodes (1996) speaks about. The Code in this reading is not only an example of such bespoke regulation but of a mediating regulation; a formulation that falls between the formal and informal and acts as a referee between conflicting group interests. Such rights and boundary conditions exclude and restrict as a result of an effort to legitimise claims and assist in the production of negotiated spaces of repression (Parker, 2002; Isin and Wood, 1999; Maffesoli, 1995).

While research focusing on conflict and on social movements (Woods, 2005) has been developed recently in rural studies, a further and important focus for consideration is how self-regulation is directed towards and upon the individual. More widely, research on processes of self-governance are often neglected parts of the literature on power and governance (Rose, 1999a; Allen, 2003) and part of this field of enquiry has exhibited a lack of attention to the way that seemingly mundane, quotidian or ‘common sense’ messages are constructed to attempt to influence behaviour in the countryside. This is important as in this lies the subtle play of both centred, authoritative power and diffuse power (Mann, 1993). In materials such as the Code and its associated ephemera there is the meeting of imposed top-down authority and the internalisation of power relations and self-ordering. In this sense the Code project may be seen as a semi-formal tool of governance

that has surreptitiously delineated good (countryside) citizenship. Such constructions reflect the relative influence of the groups involved in shaping the message (and those to whom such messages are either directed or omitted and a distinction that may be self-determined).

The Country Code is one of the ‘multiform projects, programmes and plans that attempt to make a difference to the way in which we live’ (Dean, 1996, p.

211). It seems to be a clear attempt at organising and ordering countryside practice to instill behaviours that are deemed both acceptably ‘recreational’ and acceptable in the imagined time/space of ‘the rural way of life’ or of ‘country living’. As such the 1951 Code may be read as a formal reification of rurality as much as deemed necessary guidance for the ‘untutored townsman’ (cf. Joad, 1946). However its iterations in form and content reflect not only a continuing effort to instruct users but a shifting recognition of wider issues of political and social significance—as well as an attempted extension of centralised authority over land managers.

The 1951 Code was an attempt to placate the farming/ landowning interest in the light of the 1949 Act (and in anticipation of ‘right to roam’ provisions being passed).

Prior to 1951 codes of conduct for various groups had been prepared and extolled by several national bodies, for example, the Ramblers’ Association’s own ‘Ramblers’ Code’ attempted to minimise conflict between walkers and farmers, but also sought to assert the legitimacy and competency of the Ramblers’ as a group.

This highlights the far wider role and a broader support for a Code as placatory device. The 1951 Code is in this sense an attempt to consolidate limited gains made by the recreationalists and an attempt to mollify land managers, preservationists and others concerned about the impact of ‘untutored’ or otherwise indisciplined people using the countryside.

The development of the Code has exhibited several key features, including lengthy debates about the rural way of life, shifting conceptions of what constitutes negativity and the patronisation of different audiences as well as the use of a diverse and wide range of media and material artifacts to promote the Code. The key actors have been clearly aware that the Code project is about promoting ‘good citizenship’, as well as making ongoing assertions that the Code represents common sense. The numerous changes made over time represent a shifting, long-term effort to garner and maintain the recognition that Allen (2003) claims is necessary for such measures to work upon populations. However the bureaucratic response to change has lagged and occasionally exhibited startling errors of judgement or oversights; such as the ‘failure’ to amend the ‘fasten all gates’ line of the Code and the extended period taken to move towards a dual Code in the light of the Melchett amendment in the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act

ARTICLE IN PRESS G. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16

(as well as the vociferous lobby since the 1970s on that point).19 The way that policy measures such as the Code are prepared means that they tend to support and favour specific actors and the ambitions of particular groups.

This partly accounts for the complaints, critiques and justifications for revisions of the Code aired between 1949 and 2004. The constructed and contingent nature of ‘common sense’ is also evident in this project where such a normalising, justificatory label reflects vested power rather than public interest, safety or even ‘good practice’. Common sense is revealed to be a convenience and a shorthand for numerous cultural practices that informally regulate and maintain ‘national’ and ‘local’ (qua interest-based) citizenship. Despite shifts in composition the Code appears to be an extension of the moral project and associated sumptuary regulation begun in the interwar period and a new stage to a process that has been in train since at least the 1980s.

This more recent process has been termed a post-feudal shift in the stewardship of the countryside (Parker and Ravenscroft 2001), where the public, or sections claiming to represent legitimate interests in the countryside, along with state bodies such as the Countryside Agency, DEFRA and English Nature, monitor, measure and chastise land managers and users and mobilise environmental impact as the justificatory discourse for intervention in aspects of land management and recreation.

The 2004 Country Code also demonstrates an example of the New Labour political project being extended into the countryside (cf. Woods, 2005); it being reflective of the version of communitarianism that lies at the heart of the Blair government’s policy agenda (Giddens, 2000; Sennett, 1998). The new Code, as with other shifts in rural policy since 1997 (such as reforms to UK local government, the renegotiated agricultural subsidy/environmental protection regime, ‘reconnection’ in the food chain, the new spatial planning system and various other aspects of environmental management), encourage not only a continuing shift towards post-feudalism but also a recognition of a postproductivist countryside. This view is filtered through a loose communitarian emphasis on reciprocal and matching rights and responsibilities with the 2004 Code asserting the rights and new expertise of recreationalists, tacitly of the Ramblers Association. It also implicitly recognises variable standards of past behaviours on the part of some landowners and managers and that are no longer deemed tolerable for a socially efficient countryside.

19 Perhaps significantly the research here has shown that accidental omission and resistance also play a part in determining the shape and detail of at least some disciplinary tools, these can also result in ‘holding back’ or otherwise influencing trajectories of change.

13

If the Code is implicated in setting out the performance criteria for citizenship in rural space it has in this process also helped delineate a separate countryside citizenship intended for non-rural dwellers. The new Code overtly demands the maintenance of a moral and social landscape devised and strategically shared by different groups. To transgress the Code is to risk being branded a ‘bad’ or ‘failed’ citizen—just as the Open Spaces Society outlined in the early 1950s. The changes to the Code over time therefore do not signify the erosion of a separate countryside citizenship; instead there is an ongoing reworking in progress. The advent of the 2000 CRoW Act, and the subsequent extensions to public rights of access, have propelled the latest version of the Code and reflects the ongoing role of the Code project in mediating between the rural and urban and between users and owners. However the 2004 bifurcated Code signals not a withdrawal from a general attempt to exert control over visitors to the countryside on the part of government but rather an attempt at extending the reach of the regime of conduct; a project that makes use of up-to-date media forms and popular culture to assist in this effort; just as the first Country Code publicity sub-committee sought to do in the period after 1951. Therefore if the 2004 Code reflects the waning authority of farmers and land managers it is also an indication of how ‘expert’ authority, i.e. the bureaucracy, are instead attempting to control both users and land managers on behalf of a wider interest. In this case a dislocated public interest and the maintenance of an economically viable countryside that requires moral and environmental responsibility that is determined by government.

In terms of public acceptance the Country Code project has been extremely successful over the course of more than 50 years in promoting and disseminating, if not necessarily instilling, particular citizenship practices.

Since 1951 the Code has undergone numerous changes of form, content and mediation. However the Code in its various manifestations and materialities can be read as a determined, state-sponsored effort towards a moral and spatial project, reinforcing both particular territorialities and associated governmentalities. The case of the Country Code project has illustrated how regulatory projects are managed over time with concessions, revisions and different materials being used to maintain the regime of conduct. Despite the revisions it can be argued that the Code has continued to reflect a statesponsored countryside citizenship as part of a corporatist, elitist network involving landowning/managing interests, bureaucrats within various government departments and agencies and also key actors in the recreationalist and preservationist movements. Thus the Code is directed for and against elements of the public as a method of stabilising an uneasy compact between government(s), the landowning interests and

ARTICLE IN PRESS 14

G. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16

recreationalist pressure groups; or, what may be termed the countryside access policy network.

The Code project continues to be prominent despite an increasing awareness that a generalised, ordered behavioural template may be obsolete. Any Country Code is most likely to reflect a modernist project of ordering, managing and disciplining the countryside by its very presence. The Code promotes and underlines the need for particular skills and competencies while in rural space, regardless of whom it targets or what its tenets may actually require. Despite this the Code finds new supporters and new targets for its regulatory gaze— particularly incomers looking to protect their investment in particular ruralities and who have an interest in the maintenance of rural places. Change in the Code project reflects, if opaquely, wider shifts in regulation and attitudes towards the countryside, as demonstrated in the conferment of certain freedoms upon users, as well as an explicit tutoring of the land manager. This smacks of a need to be seen to demand an equalisation of rights and responsibilities, rather than a removal of differential treatment or any actual shift in the practice of rural recreation. This is partly due to the need to maintain a Code in some form to placate landmanagers given the introduction of the right to roam under CRoW. Beyond the foregoing narrative, the Code, as regulatory tool and as political intermediary, enjoys the status of cultural icon. It has become part of a wider (British) cultural lexicon and has become a rural signifier. This significance lies not perhaps in the details of the message, or of its wider mediation but of its presence and the continuing project that demarcates space to create ‘distance’ for particular authoritative groups from a wider ‘other’. The Country Code therefore represents simultaneously a continuity and a shift that highlights the changing yet resistant attitudes and governmentalities at work in rural spaces and which, while it remains in any form, signifies separate criteria for behaviour in rural (and urban) spaces.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Peter Merriman for his input to the Code research and to Neil Ravenscroft for his comments on an earlier draft of this paper. I would also like to thank the referees of the paper for their helpful advice.

References Abrahams, H. (Ed.), 1959. Britain’s National Parks. Country Life, London.

Allen, J., 2003. Lost Geographies of Power. Blackwells, Oxford.

Ashbrook, K., 2003. Letter to Planning magazine under the title ‘Path to pleasure is down to landowners. Planning, 5th September 2003, p. 10.

Bicknell, C., 1981. Review of the Country Code. Report to the Countryside Commission by Claud Bicknell. (Commission Countryside file 81/126).

Blomley, N., 1994. Law, Space and the Geographies of Power.

Guilford Press, New York.

Blunden, J., Curry, N. (Eds.), 1989. A Peoples’ Charter. Countryside Commission/HMSO, London.

Cherry, G., 1977. History of Environmental Planning Vol. II.: National Parks and Access to the Countryside. HMSO, London.

Cloke, P., Little, J. (Eds.), 1997. Contested Countryside Cultures.

Routledge, London.

Cloke, P., Goodwin, M., Milbourne, P., 1998. Inside looking out; outside looking in. Different experiences of cultural competence in rural lifestyles. In: Boyle, P., Halfacree, K. (Eds.), Migration into Rural Areas: Theories and Issues. Wiley, London, pp. 134–150.

Countryside Agency, 2000a. A New Country Code—proposed consultation. NCAF minutes 8/4, September 2000. CA website: http://countryside.gov.uk/WiderWelcome/NCAF/index.asp Countryside Agency, 2000b. A New Country Code NCAF paper 9/5 December 2000. CA website: http://countryside.gov.uk/ WiderWelcome/NCAF/index.asp Countryside Agency, 2000c. A New Country Code CA Board paper AP00/54, December 2000. CA website: http://countryside.gov.uk/ WiderWelcome/NCAF/index.asp Countryside Agency, 2002a. Out in the country. Where you can go and what you can do. CA9 (Revised July 2002) Countryside Agency, Cheltenham.

Countryside Agency, 2002b. Minutes of the CA Board meeting, September 2002. CA website: www.countryside.gov.uk/ WiderWelcome/NCAF/index.asp Countryside Agency, 2002c. Steps towards a new country code CA Board paper AP02/30. CA website: www.countryside.gov.uk/ WiderWelcome/NCAF/index.asp Countryside Agency, 2002d. NCAF 8/4 min, 13th December 2002.

CA website: http://countryside.gov.uk/WiderWelcome/NCAF/ index.asp Countryside Agency, 2002e. Access information programme paper, NCAF minutes 15/2, February 2002. CA website: http:// www.countryside.gov.uk/WiderWelcome/NCAF/index.asp Countryside Agency, 2003a. Steps towards a revised country code CA Board paper AP03/04. CA website: http://countryside.gov.uk/ WiderWelcome/NCAF/index.asp Countryside Agency, 2003b. ‘Heads together on the new code’.

Countryside Focus Issue April/May 2003, p. 3.

Countryside Agency, 2003c. State of the Countryside Report 2003.

Countryside Agency, London.

Countryside Agency, 2004a. Code Update. Countryside Focus Issue 31, April/May/June, 2004, p.1.

Countryside Agency, 2004b. The Countryside Code, July 2004. CA, Cheltenham.

Countryside Agency, 2004c. A Countryside Code for the 21st century.

Countryside Focus Issue 32, July/August, 2004: p. 4–5.

Countryside and Rights of Way Act, 2000. TSO, London. www. legislation.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/20000037.htm Countryside Commission, 1971. Country Code. HMSO, London.

Countryside Commission, 1976. Correspondence to the Countryside Commission, Cheltenham. Countryside Commission file: FA/3/A, 26th July 1976.

Countryside Commission, 1979. Review of the Country Code: a consultation paper. Country Code Review Study Group. Countryside Commission, Cheltenham.

Countryside Commission, 1982. Follow the Country Code. The Country Code Book. Countryside Commission, Cheltenham.

ARTICLE IN PRESS G. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16 Countryside Commission, 1984. Access to the countryside: rights, customs and responsibilities. CC board briefing document, December 1984. File MT84/87.

Countryside Commission, 1985. Access Charter for Rights of Way. Countryside Commission, Cheltenham.

Countryside Commission, 1991. Visitors to the Countryside, CCP341.

Countryside Commission, Cheltenham.

Countryside Commission, 1992. Out in the Country. Where you can go and what you can do. CCP186 (Revised edition 1992). Countryside Commission, Cheltenham.

Countryside Commission, 1994. Managing Public Access: A Guide for Farmers and Landowners, CCP 450. Countryside Commission, Cheltenham.

Cox, G., Watkins, C., Winter, M., 1996. Game management and access to the countryside. In: Watkins, C. (Ed.), Rights of Way. Policy, Culture and Management. Pinter, London, pp. 197–212.

Cresswell, T., 1996. In Place, Out of Place. University of Minnesota Press, Minnesota.

Crouch, D., Parker, G., 2003. Digging up Utopia? Space, place and land use heritage. Geoforum 34, 395–408.

Curry, N., 1994. Countryside Recreation, Access and Land use Planning. E.&F.N. Spon, London.

Dean, M., 1996. Foucault, government and enfolding of authority. In: Osborne, T., Rose, N. (Eds.), Foucault and Political Reason. UCL Press, London, pp. 209–229.

Dobsen, P., 1979. Letter headed ‘Country Code’ from Paul Dobsen, CPRE assistant secretary to Bernie Sluman, Countryside Commission, dated 31st January 1979.

Donaldson, A., Lowe, P., Ward, N., 2002. Virus-crises-institutional change: The Foot and Mouth actor-network and the governance of rural affairs in the UK. Sociologia Ruralis 42, 201–214. de Moor, D., 2004. Personal communication about the Country Code in the 1970s, between the author and Mr. Des de Moor, Ramblers Association officer, June 3rd 2004.

Foucault, M., 1977. Discipline and Punish. Penguin, Harmondsworth.

Gear, D., 2004. Transcript of interview with David Gear, Countryside Agency. 10th June 2004.

Gibbard, R., Ravenscroft, N., Reeves, J., 1999. The popular culture of agricultural law reform. Journal of Rural Studies 15 (3), 269–278.

Giddens, A., 1979. Central Problems in Social Theory. Macmillan, Basingstoke.

Giddens, A., 2000. The Third Way and its Critics. Polity, Cambridge.

Goodwin, M., Painter, J., 1996. Local governance, the crises of fordism and the changing geographies of regulation. Transactions of the IBG NS 21 (4), 635–648.

Gordon, H., 1937. The Rambler’s Companion. Chatto and Windus, London.

Gramsci, A., 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Lawrence and Wishart, London.

Gruffudd, P., 1996. The countryside as educator: schools, rurality and citizenship in inter-war Wales. Journal of Historical Geography 22 (4), 412–423.

Hall, C., 1969. Letter from Christopher Hall, Ramblers, Association Secretary to Roger Bush, Countryside Commission, 3rd June 1969 (CA correspondence file 38/6A).

Hall, C., 1973. Letter from Christopher Hall, Secretary of the Ramblers’ Association, under the heading ‘Countryside behaviour’ to The Times, June 8th 1973, p. 19.

Hall, C., 1980. Country Matters. Vole. 14th February 1980, p. 17.

Hansard [House of Lords, Parliamentary debate], 1949a. Debate on the National parks and Access to the Countryside Bill—October 18th 1949. Hansard 164.

Hansard [House of Lords, Parliamentary debate], 1949b. Debate on the National parks and Access to the Countryside Bill—November 15th 1949. Hansard 165.

15

Hansard [House of Lords, Parliamentary debate], 1981. Debate on the Wildlife and Countryside Bill—amendment No. 179A by Lord Melchett. March 16th 1981. Hansard 418, 641.

Hansard [House of Lords, Parliamentary debate], 2000. Debate on the Countryside and Rights of Way Bill, 31st October 2000.

Hansard Located at: www.publications.parliament.uk/cgi-bin/ dialogserverTSO Held, D., 1989. Political Theory and the State. Polity, Cambridge.

Hunt, A., 1996. The Governance of the Consuming Passions: a History of Sumptuary Law. Macmillan, Basingstoke.

Isin, E., Wood, P., 1999. Citizenship and Identity. Sage, London.

Joad, C.E.M., 1934. A charter for ramblers’, or the future of the countryside. Hutchinson, London.

Joad, C.E.M., 1946. The untutored townsmans’ invasion of the countryside. Faber & Faber, London.

MacEwen, M., MacEwen, A., 1987. Greenprints for the Countryside?

The Story of Britain’s National Parks. Allen & Unwin, London.

Macnaghten, P., Urry, J., 1998. Contested Natures. Sage, London.

Maffesoli, M., 1995. The Time of the Tribes. Sage, London.

MAFF [Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food], 1950. Correspondence between MAFF and MTCP civil servants dated February 20th 1950–March 1st 1950 (PRO file MAF141/207).

Mann, M., 1993. The Sources of Social Power, vol. 2. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Marshall, T.H., 1950. Citizenship and Social Class. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Matless, D., 1998a. Landscape and Englishness. Reaktion, London.

Matless, D., 1998b. Taking pleasure in England: landscape and citizenship in the 1940s. In: Weight, R., Beach, A. (Eds.), The Right to Belong. Citizenship and National Identity in Britain, 1930–60.

Tauris, London, pp. 181–204.

Merriman, P., 2005. Materiality, subjectification and government. The geographies of Britain’s motorway code. Environment & Planning ‘D’: Society and Space 23, 235–250.

Milbourne, P. (Ed.), 1997. Revealing Rural Others. Pinter, London.

Ministry of Town and Country Planning [MTCP], 1945. Report of the committee on national parks in England and Wales [The Dower report], Cmd. 6628. HMSO, London.

Ministry of Town and Country Planning [MTCP], 1947. Report of the special committee on footpaths and access to the countryside [The Hobhouse report], Cmd. 7207. HMSO, London.

Ministry of Transport, 1949. Correspondence concerning the proposed country code (Ministry of Transport file MT95/93).

Morris, L., 1939. Letter to The Times newspaper under the heading ‘Ramblers’ Code’. The Times, April 29th 1939, 10.

Murdoch, J., Lowe, P., Ward, N., Marsden, T., 2003. The Differentiated Countryside. Routledge, London.

NFU [National Farmers Union], 1980. Letter headed ‘country code review’ from Dr M. Bell to the Country code review study group, dated 22nd May 1980 (Countryside Agency file 38/6/8c).

National Parks Commission, 1950a. 1st Annual Report of the National Parks Commission, 5th December 1950. HMSO, London.

National Parks Commission, 1950b. Correspondence file of the publicity sub-committee (PRO file COU2/415).

National Parks Commission, 1951a. The Country Code for Visitors to the Countryside. HMSO, London.

National Parks Commission, 1951b. 2nd annual report of the National Parks Commission, 20th November 1951. HMSO, London.

National Parks Commission, 1951c. National Parks Commission Country Code subcommittee notes 1950–51 (PRO files COU2/ 412-421).

National Parks Commission, 1953. National Parks Commission Code publicity committee minutes, 1951–53 (PRO files COU2/ 432-441).

National Parks Commission, 1954. 5th Annual Report of the National Parks Commission, 15th December 1954. HMSO, London.

ARTICLE IN PRESS 16

G. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16

National Parks Commission, 1964. 15th Annual Report of the National Parks Commission, December 1964. HMSO, London.

National Parks Commission, 1965. 16th Annual Report of the National Parks Commission, December 1965. HMSO, London.

National Parks Commission, 1966. 17th Annual Report of the National Parks Commission, December 1966. HMSO, London.

National Parks Commission & Countryside Commission, 1968.

Nineteenth Annual Report of the NPC and the First Report of the Countryside Commission. HMSO, London.

National Trust, 1978. Letter from R.H. Mills, National Trust to W.A. Grimes, Countryside Commission, dated 6th October 1978 (Countryside Agency file 38/6/4).

Parker, G., 2002. Citizenships, Contingency and the Countryside.

Routledge, London.

Parker, G., Ravenscroft, N., 2001. Land, Rights and the Gift: the 2000 Countryside and Rights of Way Act and the negotiation of citizenship. Sociologia Ruralis 41 (4), 381–398.

Parker, G., Ravenscroft, N., 1999. Citizenship, Nationalism and Hegemony: fifty years of the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act. Leisure Studies 21, 297–313.

Ramblers’ Association, 1953. Introducing you to Rambling. Ramblers’ Association, London.

Ramblers’ Association, 1954. The Ramblers’ Association constitution.

Ramblers’ Association, London.

Rhodes, R., 1996. The new governance: governing without government. Political Studies 44 (4), 652–667.

Riddall, J., Trevelyan, J., 2001. Rights of Way. A Guide to Law and Practice, third ed. Ramblers’ Association and the Open Spaces Society, London.

Rose, N., 1999a. Governing the Soul: the Shaping of the Private Self, second ed. Free Association Books, London.

Rose, N., 1999b. Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought.

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Rothman, B., 1982. The 1932 Kinder Trespass. Willow Press, Altrincham.

Sennett, R., 1998. The Corrosion of Character: the Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism. Norton, New York.

Sheail, J., 1981. A History of Conservation in Inter-war Britain.

Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Shoard, M., 1987. This Land is our Land. Grafton, London.

Shoard, M., 1999. A Right to Roam. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Sibley, D., 1995. Geographies of Exclusion. Routledge, London.

Soja, E., 1996. Thirdspace. Journeys to Los Angeles and other Real and Imagined Places. Blackwell, Oxford.

Stephenson, T., 1989. Forbidden Land. Manchester University Press, Manchester.

Stevenson, N. (Ed.), 2001. Culture and Citizenship. Sage, London.

The Field, 1980. Commonsense and a new Country Code. The Field, 6th February 1980 256 (6629), 1.

The Guardian, 2004. Weekly outings urged to help timid pupils, 24th May, Guardian online [accessed 28th May 2004].

The Open Spaces Society, 1945. Behaviour in the countryside. Open Space, September 1945 VII (9), 294–299.

The Open Spaces Society, 1951. The Country Code. Open Space. July 1951 X (3).

The Times, 1951. Editorial: ‘Country manners’. The Times, May 12th 1951, p. 7.

The Times, 1953. Parliament page: ‘National Park Amenities’. The Times, May 20th 1953, p. 3.

The Times, 1962. Countryside Code? The Times, May 19th 1962, p. 10.

Turner, J., 1951. Letter from the President of the NFU, under the heading ‘The Country Code’. The Times, 31st July 1951, p. 7.

Van Houtum, H., Kramsch, O., Zierhofer, W. (Eds.), 2005. Bordering Space. Ashgate, Aldershot.

Whatmore, S., 2002. Hybrid Geographies. Sage, London.

Winter, M., 1996. Rural Politics. Routledge, London.

Woods, M., 1997. Researching rural conflicts: hunting, local politics and actor-networks. Journal of Rural Studies 14 (3), 321–340.

Woods, M., 2005. Contesting Rurality. Politics in the British Countryside. Ashgate, Aldershot.