CAMPAIGN TO PROTECT RURAL ENGLAND | SPRING 2017
Inside
The secrets of great landscape photography Get walking – and join our spring clean-up The story behind Ruskin Land
CALL OF THE WILD
Could rewilding be good for the countryside?
CPRE_SPRING_17.indb 1
16/03/2017 20:03
CONTENTS
A FOND FAREWELL This is the last introduction I will write for Countryside Voice as I will be leaving CPRE at the end of May to join Green Alliance. It has been a great privilege to lead CPRE for 12 years, and going will be a big wrench, but I am delighted to say that the organisation is in very good shape. We live in a time of huge pressure on the countryside, which makes CPRE’s mission more vital than ever. The good news is that we are making a difference, both locally and nationally: CPRE saves countryside that would otherwise be lost forever. But we do much more than stopping bad development proposals; we also strive to find solutions to the problems the country faces. I am very proud of our recent successes (often achieved in partnership with other organisations) on undergrounding overhead lines through beautiful landscapes; reducing the impact of roads on the landscape; tackling litter; promoting dark skies; extending National Parks; finding alternatives to damaging energy schemes and a host of other things. In February, the Housing Minister, Gavin Barwell, gave the CPRE lecture, and paid tribute to our work on housing policy. ‘We’ve not only listened to your input,’ he said, ‘we’ve taken it on board. Any honest assessment of the Housing White Paper will quickly spot the marks of your influence – whether it’s the protection of the Green Belt, our opposition to speculative development or our insistence on community involvement in planning and design.’ We still have big concerns about housing policy, particularly the way targets are calculated, but it is good to know that Ministers are listening. I look forward to reading future issues of Countryside Voice as a CPRE member, and I will be cheering on from the sidelines. I am confident that CPRE will remain an effective, invaluable champion of the countryside, as it has been for over 90 years. As ever, thank you for your support: it is CPRE’s members who make all our achievements possible.
Shaun Spiers, Chief Executive
2 News Updates on our recent work 6 Local Voice Branch news and campaigns 8 Your Voice Have your say 9 Debate Making the most of our land 10 Big read The rewilding debate 13 My England Martin Birks on landscape photography 14 Inspiration The walking campaign that’s changing lives 16 Community Inside Ruskin Land 19 Discover Six majestic castles 20 View from here Ninety years of The Countryman magazine
12 years
NEWS
Fixing the housing market After months of public campaigning and parliamentary lobbying to influence its contents, February saw us welcome a Housing White Paper designed to address the ‘broken’ housing market. Ministers had clearly listened to CPRE’s argument that simply undermining the planning system will not solve the housing crisis. Heeding our recent Housing Foresight papers, the long-awaited document conceded the need to prioritise brownfield sites; stop big developers sitting on their land banks; and give smaller builders (including housing associations) more support.
Protecting Green Belt
Above all, we were pleased that the White Paper emphasised the need to maintain Green Belt protection in the face of huge pressure to open it up for development. This is not to say that the status quo is tenable – the latest CPRE research recently showed that enough Green Belt land for 360,000 homes is being proposed for release as a result of unrealistic housing targets. The White Paper promises a further consultation on how housing need is calculated, but the proposals for a new ‘housing delivery test’ on local authorities could see even more countryside earmarked for development.
Housing based on need
Shaun’s time at the helm of CPRE – we salute his passion and dedication!
With the Prime Minister’s foreword calling for ‘more land for homes where people want to live’, we will argue strongly that housing targets should prioritise genuine need over aspirational demand. That point was central to the debate at our Annual Lecture on 20 February, when our local campaigners also urged the Housing Minister, Gavin Barwell MP, to give more weight to local constraints on development – from pressure on services and infrastructure to the need to protect the Green Belt. The Minister spoke of his ‘great respect for the contribution CPRE members have made to public life over many decades’, and our county branches are working with national office to prepare a robust and constructive response to the White Paper.
Follow the latest on housing and read the Housing Minister’s full CPRE lecture at www.cpre.org.uk
2 W W W.C P R E .O RG . U K
CPRE_SPRING_17.indb 2
16/03/2017 20:03
NEWS
GREEN BELT LAND INCLUDES…
12%
34%
12%
48
of England’s priority habitats
of community forest land
of National Cycle Network trails
Local Nature Reserves created since 2009
INVESTING IN OUR GREEN BELT Our recent report on Green Belt underlined the enormous value of the 12.5% of England that is protected by this designation. Not only has it successfully prevented urban sprawl, but Green Belt is also a vital resource for people and wildlife. The report emphasises just how much precious recreational land is found in the Green Belt, from country parks and community woodland to Local
Nature Reserves. However, the inconsistent management of Green Belt planning policies and the lack of investment are jeopardising its future: ‘This land often has various owners, which makes a joined-up approach difficult,’ says CPRE’s Paul Miner. ‘Increased development pressures are swallowing up stretches of Green Belt, and to avoid further loss, current policies need tightening.’
CPRE has called on the Government’s 25-year plan for the environment (expected as we go to press) to improve nature and landscape conservation in the Green Belt. We continue to argue that further investment is necessary to safeguard and enhance the land that provides 30 million of us with our closest access to the countryside.
Download the full CPRE report, Nature Conservation and Recreational Opportunities in the Green Belt, from www.cpre.org.uk/resources
|
SPRING 2017
5
OF THE BEST We round up some of our favourite Green Belt days out – find out more in our latest report (see left)
1
Lee Valley Country Park, Essex/ Hertfordshire A ‘green lung’ for London, this awardwinning park has 10,000 acres of open spaces and sports venues to explore.
2
Bold Forest Park, St Helens, Merseyside This former spoil heap in the Mersey Forest has been transformed into woodland spanning 544 acres, rich in wildflowers.
3
Northumberlandia, Cramlington, Northumberland The main attraction of this 46-acre community park is ‘the lady’, a reclining sculpture made from 1.5 million tonnes of rock, clay and soil.
The Thames Path is a valued part of London’s Green Belt
U N D E R TH RE AT
SHUTTERSTOCK/ALAMY
OUR LIMITED LAND RESOURCE THE PROBLEM: We need land for housing, infrastructure, farming and recreation – but it is an increasingly limited resource. With England’s population estimated to reach 60 million over the next decade, and given the significant challenges posed by climate change, making effective land use decisions will be vital to reduce future conflicts.
WHAT WE’RE DOING: We are seeing growing evidence to suggest that the current system is too fragmented to deal with the competing demands on our land, and is failing to effectively protect
4
our countryside and renew our cities. Our new Landlines pamphlet aims to kick-start a debate on the potential of a ‘national land use strategy’ to provide a long-term assessment of how to make the most of our land. We want to see a more strategic approach that will help produce better outcomes not just for the environment, but for society and the economy.
Landlines (in the Resources section of our website) contains views from a range of experts, including those on page 9
Woodgate Valley Country Park, Birmingham Green Belt This Local Nature Reserve has 450 acres of mature hedgerows, woodlands and small ponds, which provide a home for more than 90 species of bird.
5
Dearne Valley Green Heart, Barnsley, South Yorkshire With a mixture of wetlands, farmland and woodland, nature and people live in harmony in this tranquil environment.
W W W.C PR E .O RG .U K
CPRE_SPRING_17.indb 3
3
16/03/2017 20:03
Left to right: Shaun Spiers, Kate Adie, Sir David Bell and Clive Aslet
OUR 90TH BIRTHDAY Thanks to all those who attended CPRE’s 90th anniversary event at the University of Reading’s Museum of English Rural Life. It was wonderful to see so many of you there, and celebrate our many historic successes in the context
of topical debates around Brexit, affordable housing and climate change. An entertaining panel discussion saw broadcaster Kate Adie suggest that rural life has improved during CPRE’s lifetime. Former Country Life editor Clive
Aslet praised ‘the campaigning vigour of CPRE’ and Landscape Institute president Merrick Denton-Thompson said the nation owed ‘a great debt of gratitude’ to its volunteers. The debate was superbly chaired by the university vice chancellor, Sir David Bell, after illness prevented former CPRE president Jonathan Dimbleby from
attending. Happily, Jonathan was soon well enough to send the following message: ‘CPRE has an ever more crucial role in shaping the future of rural England. Without it, the vandals would have found it far easier to lay waste to this precious heritage. For the sake of us all, CPRE must always be there to stop them in their tracks.’
CAMPAIGNS AT A GLANCE BEHIND THE HEADLINES
Rounding up some highlights from CPRE’s recent media coverage:
•
•
• •
‘The trashing of our countryside has to stop’ In her Times column on our 90th, Alice Thomson argued that, but for CPRE, the South East could have been swamped by LA-style sprawl (7 December) ‘Socialists have helped save the countryside too’ Isabella Stone wrote to The Guardian to recommend our book 22 Ideas that Saved the English Countryside for a balanced history of campaigning (8 December) ‘Derelict sites should be made nature reserves, say campaigners’ The BBC covered our Green Belt research (see page 3) in detail (12 December) ‘Homes boom puts end to village life in “Ambridge”’ With Inkberrow in Worcestershire – the model for Ambridge in The Archers – now classed as a town due to greenfield development, Shaun Spiers warned The Times that the loss of historic villages is a wake-up call (18 December)
PROGRESS ON NEIGHBOURHOOD PLANNING Our lobbying for a ‘neighbourhood right to be heard’ prompted a significant statement from Planning Minister Gavin Barwell during December’s debates on the Neighbourhood Planning Bill. The Minister committed to ‘protect communities who have worked hard to produce their neighbourhood plan’ and reiterated that applications that override them should not be granted. He issued a Written Ministerial Statement on how this would work, but what has been proposed so far is unnecessarily complex and heavily caveated. CPRE continues to support changes that will strengthen communities by giving neighbourhood plans far more weight. THE END OF THE ROAD? The promised economic benefits of recent road schemes have largely failed to materialise: many have encouraged out-of-town development that reduces investment in local economies, while the vast majority have increased traffic levels. That’s the conclusion of new research by CPRE into the consequences of road building.
It also found that eight out of 10 schemes have damaged landscapes, with almost two-thirds affecting places that have local or national designations on account of their beauty, wildlife or heritage. We would like the Government to make increasing road capacity a last resort. Instead, we want to see more investment in widening travel choices (particularly in cardependent rural areas) and reducing the environmental impacts of existing roads. GETTING INFRASTRUCTURE RIGHT A recent CPRE lecture given by Phil Graham, chief executive of the National Infrastructure Commission, sparked discussion of how we can deliver infrastructure that is supported by local communities and in harmony with our landscapes. The Commission has launched a call for evidence to shape its vision of the nation’s infrastructure needs up to 2050, including transport, energy, digital, water and waste. In response, CPRE has called for innovative solutions so that costs to consumers and the countryside can be minimised, while rural areas can receive their fair share of investment.
For all the latest on CPRE’s campaign work, visit www.cpre.org.uk, find us on Facebook or follow @cpre on Twitter
4 W W W.C P R E .O RG . U K
CPRE_SPRING_17.indb 4
16/03/2017 20:03
WHAT TO DO THIS SPRING
The proposed site of a new Hertfordshire garden village, inspired by garden towns such as Welwyn Garden City (below)
IN FOCUS
GARDEN VILLAGES AND TOWNS
Following the Government’s January announcement of support for around 80,000 homes in 14 ‘garden villages’ and three new ‘garden towns’, CPRE’s Shaun Spiers told the BBC that the proposals must be ‘locally led, respect the Green Belt and other planning designations, and meet the need for genuinely affordable housing for local people’. Unfortunately, details of some of the plans have raised fears that this isn’t going to be the case, with CPRE Hertfordshire defending a Green Belt site from a garden town proposal that would actually be an extension of Harlow, swallowing two small
villages in the process. CPRE accepts that well-planned and locally supported new settlements could be preferable to poor-quality estates tacked onto existing communities. But with no official definition of what constitutes a garden village or town, our branches will resist unsustainable developments that are merely rebranded with the ‘garden’ label. Instead, we suggest that the Garden City principles of self-contained and attractive development be applied, in the first instance, to the brownfield sites that could provide more than one million homes.
Countryside Champion:
motorway to inspect the flowers! After spending several years overseas in Australia and Sudan, Isobel returned to live on the Isle of Wight (pictured) in the 1960s, where she loved nothing better than coastal and inland walks. British nature always held a fond place in Isobel’s heart; even in her 80s, she would embark on six-mile walks, delighting in the flowers and wildlife she saw.
ISOBEL WATTS
SHUTTERSTOCK/ALAMY
This issue we pay tribute to Isobel Watts, an avid lover of the great outdoors and CPRE supporter, who left a generous legacy to CPRE to help preserve the countryside she adored. Isobel spent her early years in Shrewsbury, where her love of wildflowers blossomed. This love only grew stronger throughout her lifetime, and her nephew, Paul Robinson, recalls her stopping on the hard shoulder of the
Learn more about how legacies help our work at www.cpre.org.uk/ how-you-can-help, email legacyinfo@ cpre.org.uk or call 020 7981 2855
Celebrate Austen
This year marks the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s death. The much-loved author spent the last years of her life in a tranquil cottage in Chawton, Hampshire, which is now the Jane Austen’s House Museum. The museum has plenty of exciting events planned to mark ‘Jane Austen 200’ – and as a CPRE member, you’ll also enjoy two for one adult entry. See your 2017 members’ guide for details.
Join our spring clean
We know how many of you are already doing your bit to wage war on litter. This spring, we’ve teamed up with Country Walking magazine on a campaign to encourage walkers to get litter-picking. Find out more about the campaign on page 14 – and visit our website www.litteraction.org.uk to find or set up litter-picking groups in your area.
A Tale of Trees
In his new book, A Tale of Trees: The Battle to Save Britain’s Ancient Woodland (Short Books, £14.99), Derek Niemann explores the British love of ancient woodlands, the reasons behind their near destruction and the ongoing fight to save them. We are delighted to have three copies of the book to give away. For your chance to win one, send your name and address on a postcard marked ‘Trees’ to Countryside Voice, Think, Capital House, 25 Chapel Street, London NW1 5DH – or send an email titled ‘Trees’ to cpre@ thinkpublishing.co.uk with your details – by 31 July 2017.
W W W.C PR E .O RG .U K
CPRE_SPRING_17.indb 5
5
16/03/2017 20:03
Local Voice
LIVERPOOL
BRANCH NEWS AND CAMPAIGNS FROM ACROSS THE COUNTRY
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE NORFOLK
HERTFORDSHIRE BUCKINGHAMSHIRE We are raising awareness of planning matters in and around Plymouth
Devon CPRE Devon has created an evocative short film showcasing the breadth of its work and the beauty of the countryside it is fighting to protect. Recent good news on this front included the dismissal of an appeal by developers seeking to build an intrusive development in the village of Abbotskerswell, with the planning inspector satisfied that Teignbridge District Council was already meeting housing targets. Elsewhere, Warren Farm in Dawlish Warren has been saved from a compulsory purchase order, allowing
HAMPSHIRE
Cornwall CPRE president Emma Bridgewater (pictured, second from right) recently visited our Cornish branch to view examples of good and bad housing. Emma, who has family ties with, and a long-standing love of, the county, met with CPRE volunteers, parish councillors and representatives of affordable housing projects on her tour. ‘Poorly planned development is threatening Cornwall’s famous countryside and coast, and local people are right to want a better future,’ she said. ‘We need to put more power in the hands of local people through this wonderful thing called neighbourhood planning, and invest more in brownfield sites that can provide new homes.’
Nottinghamshire Campaigners at CPRE Nottinghamshire have made a submission to the county council about proposals for exploratory shale gas drilling at Tinker Lane near Barnby Moor. The branch argued that the process would create heavy traffic on local minor roads, with oversize vehicles passing through the village of Blyth. Their submission also raised the issue of the loss of tranquillity, suggesting that the applicant’s noise tests should be independently verified. Another source of concern is the future of nearby wildlife sites, including
KENT
the farmer and his family DEVON to continue to work the land sustainably. Meanwhile, the branch CORNWALL held an extremely successful seminar and debate on housing and the Plymouth and South West Devon Joint Local more, with guest speakers Gary Streeter MP and Plan in February. The event attracted 160 people Tom Jones, lead planning officer for the Joint Local from all over the county, including local residents, Plan at South Hams District Council. Watch the short film on the CPRE Devon home page town and parish councillors, district and county at www.cpredevon.org.uk councillors, neighbourhood planning groups and
Norfolk
Meanwhile, the branch is backing Cornwall Council and Caradon Observatory’s bid for International Dark Sky designation for Bodmin Moor. As CPRE research has shown, while not without light pollution problems, Cornwall is ranked as England’s fourth-darkest county.
Daneshill Lakes Nature Reserve, from the likely impact of light, air and water pollution. Where exploratory wells have been approved at Misson in Bassetlaw, the branch is pleased that planning conditions restricting lorry movements have been introduced, following its lobbying. Meanwhile, it has joined forces with CPRE Derbyshire to comment on the proposed Derby-Nottingham Metropolitan Strategy. Our campaigners’ aims include maintaining the Green Belt between the cities, preserving and enhancing urban green spaces, and improving public transport provision.
CPRE Norfolk’s petition calling for a Norwich Green Belt has now passed 1,100 signatures, and been delivered to city and district councils, as well as local MPs. As branch chair Chris Dady told the local press, ‘Most people are astonished to learn that Norfolk has no Green Belt to protect it, and the damage that this lack is causing is evident all around us.’ Around 90% of CPRE Norfolk’s work involves dealing with planning applications and fighting damaging developments. It is currently looking for more people to join its planning wardens network, as well as planning trustees to serve on its committee. Meanwhile, the branch is currently planning a summer fair at Wolterton Hall and Park on 20 August that will celebrate local food and drink, arts, crafts and industries. Sign the petition at www.change.org/o/cpre_norfolk or find out more at www.cprenorfolk.org.uk
Barnby Moor is a tranquil part of Nottinghamshire
6 W W W.C P RE .O RG . UK
CPRE_SPRING_17.indb 6
16/03/2017 20:03
LOCAL VOICE
Buckinghamshire
Our branch is championing the Hertfordshire countryside
Green Belt land remains under unprecedented threat in the county, with Chiltern and South Bucks District Councils considering whether to release more than 1,000 acres of designated Green Belt for commercial and housing development. However, all may not yet be lost. During Question Time in the House of Commons, new CPRE Buckinghamshire president Cheryl Gillan MP put Communities Secretary Sajid Javid on the spot about his commitment to protecting Green Belt. He agreed that regarding Green Belt development, ‘the circumstances must be exceptional, and brownfield land should always be prioritised’, while also promising to uphold ‘strong local leadership’ in the planning process.
Plans to build a huge new estate on Green Belt land at Cuffley have been overturned, to the delight of CPRE Hertfordshire. Councillors rejected the construction of 493 houses and 115 retirement dwellings, as they did not meet the special circumstances necessary for Green Belt development. However, the future of Hertfordshire’s Green Belt remains uncertain, with the Government’s proposed garden town at Harlow and Gilston, a development that could see 10,000 houses built on an idyllic area of Green Belt, causing deep local concern (see page 5).
The Chiltern Hills have escaped urban sprawl – but for how long?
Liverpool
Fresh from its 50th anniversary in 2016, CPRE Hampshire shares its priorities and highlights
SUCCESSES From village shops to sustainable buildings, the branch’s Countryside Awards have celebrated the best of the county for 11 years (see above for last year’s winners, judges and sponsors with HM Lord Lieutenant of the county Nigel Atkinson – fourth from right). It recently launched this year’s award scheme, with new sponsors including housing association Hastoe Group and the local natural mineral water company Hildon Ltd. In North East Hampshire, the branch welcomed Hart’s inclusion in a Government pilot scheme on the use of brownfield registers, which will list suitable disused sites for redevelopment. Our campaigners were delighted that three times the expected amount of brownfield was identified as suitable for housing, but pointed out that even more sites could have been included, if granted planning permission. Meanwhile the branch’s successful events calendar continues in May with its AGM, as well as a talk on the truth about fracking and the countryside from South Hampshire CPRE volunteer and petroleum geologist Caroline Dibden.
Beautiful countryside near Newington
There was good news in Kent, with a proposed development of 330 houses at Newington quashed for a second time on the grounds that it would cause ‘significant harm’ to the landscape. Elsewhere in the county, planning applications for two phone masts have been rejected by Dover District Council. Our Kent branch was instrumental in voicing local concerns, arguing that the masts would cause harm to the landscape, heritage and ecology. Councillors overruled the proposal, agreeing that it would impact on the historical character of the area.
When our branch asked the public what its priorities should be, 78% said responding to planning applications to prevent damaging development, while 76% said it should campaign for a South Hampshire Green Belt. Needless to say, the branch has continued to do both in 2017. It has also prepared a Hampshire Strategic Vision briefing, as it shares concerns with others that the county’s essential qualities are at risk from unplanned growth. The branch will fight an appeal by Linden Homes to build on fields near Winchester, which was rejected by city council planners for breaching local housing plans. It also contributed to the recent Southern Water conference and Vitacress Conservation Trust forum on how to conserve landscapes while meeting water needs. Find out more about CPRE Hampshire’s work at www.cprehampshire.org.uk, follow the branch on Twitter @CPRE_Hampshire or find it on Facebook
ALAMY
SHUTTERSTOCK/ALAMY
Spotlight on:
CURRENT CAMPAIGNS
Kent
The Allerton Priory estate is rich in wildlife
SPRING 2017
CPRE Hampshire
Hertfordshire
Liverpool’s so-called ‘green wedge’ of surviving open spaces is increasingly being eroded by development. So it was good news when planners recently threw out a controversial housing scheme that would encroach on the Allerton Priory estate – one of the city’s most tranquil green spaces and a haven for wildlife. But with developers intending to appeal the decision, our local campaigners will have to fight on to save it, says Pam Leadbeater of CPRE Liverpool. She has also been investigating possible historic features at comedy writer Carla Lane’s former home – but with plans afoot to demolish the house, the site’s future is uncertain.
|
W W W.C PR E .O RG .U K
CPRE_SPRING_17.indb 7
7
16/03/2017 20:04
SPRING 2017
|
MAILBOX
Your Voice star letter
THE ENCHANTMENT OF NATURE Melissa Harrison’s article, The Power of Place (winter 2016), evokes the sense of place that speaks to us as a species – a species that, of late, is existing apart from all that matters. The intrusive paraphernalia of technology has caused a shift in how we perceive the natural world in general, and our unrivalled landscape in particular. We were a species of the soil and open air – farmers, foragers and foresters, with huge knowledge of how the countryside operated in the seasons. By reconnecting with all that really matters, we will find our way and restore our heritage. David Harvey, Chippenham, Wiltshire REVIVING OUR HEDGEROWS James Noble’s letter (winter 2016) makes a crucial point – many of the landscapes we love are a wasting asset, because there are so few young hedgerow trees coming on. In the days of hand-trimmed (and -laid) hedges, promising shoots or saplings were left to grow on. In the past they would have laughed at ‘planting schemes’ – the whole business was about managing natural regeneration (which mainly involved stopping deer and cattle eating them!). Marking
Star letter writer David wins a luxury hamper from The Artisan Smokehouse, a multiaward-winning smokehouse in rural Suffolk. ‘The British Hamper’ is packed with delectable delights, including smoked British beef fillet, free-range duck breast, smoked farmhouse cheddar and artisan cheese biscuits. For the full selection of luxury hampers, see www.artisansmokehouse.co.uk
stare priz
young trees (usually with a white flag) so that the tractor driver knows when to lift his flail is the simplest way to renew our stock of ‘standards’ in the landscape. A hedgerow without trees is like a sentence without punctuation – shapeless and boring! David Gordon, Hinton St George, Somerset A CHARTER OF STEWARDSHIP In your summer issue, Patrick Holden imagines a return to a ‘traditional mosaic of fields in family-run farms’. This sounds like the Sussex High Weald when I started farming in 1961 – when the average farm size was less than 30 acres – with a few cows, pigs and chickens. Unfortunately, such a farm would be uneconomic today, even with the current CAP [Common
Agricultural Policy] grants, so how can we revive it with private funding? In the same issue, Peter Hetherington suggests safeguarding the land with a ‘charter of ownership between Government and landowners’. I devised a scheme in which a landowner would be granted planning permission for a new country house in return for tying it in perpetuity to at least 50 acres of the surrounding land, with a stewardship agreement to maintain its beauty, along with free public access. I applied for such a permission and was turned down by the Planning Officer before hearing an explanation of its benefits, so we need such a charter to be included in the CAP replacement. Desmond Gunner, Uckfield, East Sussex
A SHORT BREAK AT DARTINGTON HALL Set in a 1,200-acre estate, Dartington Hall (right) is a Grade I listed manor house in the stunning Devon countryside. Guests can relax in one of the beautiful four-star bedrooms located around a 14th-century medieval courtyard, and enjoy delicious local food in the on-site White Hart bar and restaurant. After a good night’s sleep, tuck into a tasty breakfast and explore the grounds, or visit The Shops at Dartington, a group of 14 shops and cafés on the estate. If you’d like more information about Dartington Hall, call 01803 847150 or visit www.dartingtonhall.com. For a chance to win a two-night, midweek stay for two people sharing,
Win
“” “”
JOIN THE DEBATE
Your responses to our debate on rural England post-Brexit… To say loss of subsidies will not be mourned is only true if farmers can be paid more than the price of production. At the moment, traditional, mixed family farms with 250 acres cannot make a living, even with subsidies. These farmers often love their job, their land, take care of soil and take great personal care of their animals and land, and it is these farmers who are really suffering. Pam Powell, Herefordshire
In relation to the big changes I assume are coming to farm subsidies after 2020, there could be a rare and golden opportunity for improved access to the countryside in return for any future subsidies. In my parish, some short field-edge linking paths would make a huge difference to the network, which was much damaged by legal diversions in the 1980s. We need more paths – and more say in where they go. Janet Lockett, Suffolk
We’d love to know what you think of the magazine and the issues we’ve covered.
including breakfast on both days and a two-course dinner for one evening, simply identify the famous Devon castle located near Dartington, pictured left. Send your name, contact details and answer in an email or on a postcard titled ‘View’ to either of the addresses on the right by 31 July 2017.
email us at cpre@thinkpublishing.co.uk Twitter via @CPRE write to us at Countryside Voice, Think, Capital House, 25 Chapel Street, London NW1 5DH We are unable to respond to all letters, and those published may be edited for length and clarity. The prize break includes a two-night midweek stay for two people at Dartington Hall. The prize must be redeemed within 12 months and excludes bank holidays and 23 December to 2 January. Full prize draw Ts&Cs are available on request.
8 W W W.C P R E .O RG . U K
CPRE_SPRING_17.indb 8
16/03/2017 20:04
DEBATE
|
SPRING 2017
Back to the land question For our new Landlines pamphlet on land use in England, we asked leading experts how we can make better use of our most finite resource ‘WE NEED A DEPARTMENT OF LAND USE’ Lord Deben is chairman of the UK Committee on Climate Change, and former Environment Secretary and Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Stopping urban sprawl, concentrating on the redevelopment of land previously built on, recreating a sense of place, and integrating services, transport, commerce and housing – these are the real business of planning. But local authorities can’t and won’t do it on their own. Government has to get its own house in order. We need a Department of Land Use, which would bring together the strategic elements of planning, environment, agriculture and infrastructure, to enable us to decide what kind of country we want to leave to our grandchildren. The immediate action of the department would be to insist on the release of brownfield land held by Government agencies and quasigovernmental bodies, lowering prices and making urban redevelopment more attractive. Levies on land that had planning permission, but remained undeveloped, would stop ‘landbanking’ and help pay for the decontamination of land otherwise suitable for housing. Such a concentration of effort on urban redevelopment would drive innovation and imagination in a construction industry used to the easy pickings of greenfield housing and out-of-town development. That strategic shift would recover the excitement of urban living and return the countryside to robust health.
‘DEMANDS MUST BE BALANCED IN THE CONTEXT OF CLIMATE CHANGE’ Baroness Young of Old Scone is chair of the Woodland Trust, former chair of English Nature, and former chief executive of the Environment Agency and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Climate change is increasing pressure on land. We will lose some of our scarce resource down the east coast with sea-level rise. Increased storminess and periodic drought is already producing greater erosion of soils. The first task of a land use strategy must be to protect this basic resource, with agricultural and forestry policies targeted at more sustainable management of our soils. Trees can help with this: stabilising soils and reducing fast run-off of water and sediment. Designing green space and trees into the built environment also helps with heat reduction to mitigate the impact of heatwaves, which can be killers. Climate change will raise challenges for water supply and sustainable land use for agriculture. Crop types will need to change, cultivation methods adjust, and new ways of dealing with new pests will have to be grasped. We must think through whether we really want pineapples in Kent and zebu grazing in Suffolk! The one silver lining following the EU referendum is the opportunity to design an integrated land use strategy from scratch, rationalising and balancing the multiple demands on land in the context of climate change. Scotland has made a credible start with its land use strategy. Why can’t the rest of the UK follow suit?
‘DECISIONS MUST INVOLVE PEOPLE AT THE GRASS ROOTS’ Helen Meech is director of Rewilding Britain and former assistant director of outdoors and nature engagement at the National Trust It is vital that we involve the public in defining what they value from land, and in determining what public benefit they wish to see delivered. The Brexit vote shows there is appetite for a change to the way that decisions are made. There is a need for politics and decision-making to be much more participatory, involving people at the grass roots in environmental decisions to shape the places in which they live. Online technology offers a raft of new ways to do this: capturing insights on what is valued, facilitating participative policymaking, and visualising future landscapes through computer animation. But it’s essential to give people a chance to get involved in projects on the ground. In Pickering, North Yorkshire, rather than building a £20m concrete flood wall through the centre of town, the community planted 29 hectares of woodland upstream to naturally reduce flood risk. Defra’s 25-year plan for the environment should advance and expand natural environment policy to move beyond site protection to ecosystem restoration, funded on the principle of public payment for delivery of public benefit. Rewilding offers hope for the future: a chance to work with communities to restore to parts of Britain the wonder and enchantment of wild nature.
‘PROACTIVE SPATIAL PLANNING IS THE WAY FORWARD’ Sir Terry Farrell CBE is a leading British architect and urban planner Densification is often negatively perceived as ‘concreting over’ our urban areas – but this is not borne out by reality. In fact, if done the right way with good spatial planning, then greater density can well mean more green open spaces and improved public access to them. In London, I have demonstrated this with projects like King’s Cross Goods Yard, the Olympic Park and complex at Stratford, and even schemes like Canary Wharf. Where there were once secure industrial areas, there are now accessible parks, gardens and trees. The vision of London as a National Park City is within our grasp, and underlines how development density and rich natural landscape are not mutually exclusive. Take, for example, the richest ecological habitat in all the South East of England: the four million back gardens of houses. Meanwhile, our master plans at the Newcastle Quayside, Birmingham’s Brindleyplace and Edinburgh’s The Exchange have replaced inaccessible rail yards and docks with open squares and canal and riverbanks. All these projects exemplify CPRE’s mantra (and I paraphrase) of ‘the best way to protect the countryside is by ensuring urban areas have a much better offer as a place to live’. Urbanisation, if properly, proactively and spatially planned, will indeed provide a much better offer.
Download CPRE’s Landlines pamphlet on land use at www.cpre.org.uk/ resources – and tell us what you think at cpre@ thinkpublishing.co.uk
CPRE_SPRING_17.indb 9
16/03/2017 20:04
Bringing back native species such as the grey wolf has been a success in parts of America – but could similar rewilding projects benefit the English countryside?
Return to the
wild?
10 W W W.C P R E .O RG .U K
CPRE_SPRING_17.indb 10
With the pros and cons of rewilding generating plenty of debate among naturalists and environmentalists, Roly Smith asks whether it could leave the countryside in better shape
16/03/2017 20:04
BIG READ
‘When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.’
|
SPRING 2017
Black Hill in the Peak District, before restoration (below) and after (this image)
John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra, 1869 Writer, editor and consultant Roly Smith is vice president of the Outdoor Writers’ and Photographers’ Guild and the author of more than 90 books on the countryside.
SHUTTERSTOCK
M
uir, the Scots-born father of the American National Parks, made a good point after his first summer among the granite spires and sequoias of Yosemite and the High Sierra. Whatever changes happen in nature, even when facilitated by man, have consequences that spread right down the natural order of things. The new term that environmentalists are using to explain this effect is a ‘trophic cascade’. Changes at the top of the food chain can radically alter the whole ecosystem, and even the landscape itself. A case in point was the recent reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park in the American Rockies. Previously, there was a problem of overgrazing in Yellowstone, caused by a booming population of elk – a similar problem, in fact, to that faced by much of our English uplands, caused by either sheep or red deer. A team of scientists realised that the problem was that the Yellowstone’s top predator, the grey wolf, had been exterminated 75 years before. With no natural control on their numbers, the elk had cropped many of the stream and riversides bare, with the consequent loss of tree and scrub cover and its associated mammal, insect and birdlife. The reintroduction of wolves in 1995 saw an almost immediate change in the elks’ behaviour. They avoided the places where they could most easily be caught, such as the open riversides, and as a result, trees such as aspen, cottonwood and willow began to return. With the trees came the insects, butterflies and bugs, and eventually beavers. And with the insects came songbirds, such as warblers and flycatchers. The dambuilding beavers created new habitats for otters, muskrats, fish, frogs and reptiles. The returning trees stabilised the banks of rivers and streams, reducing the rate of erosion and creating a greater range of pools and riffles. Everything, as Muir so wisely said nearly a century and a half before, is hitched to everything else.
West Yorkshire, could increase the risk of flooding downstream. In pre-Brexit Euro-speak, this clearance was known as keeping the land in ‘agricultural condition’, and it meant that if the managers didn’t keep the hills bare, they didn’t receive EU subsidies. It also meant that ‘permanent ineligible features’, such as scrub, woodland, bogs, ponds and other features that harbour rare wildlife and hold back floodwater, had to be cleared.
A dynamic landscape Of course, in England we do not have anything approaching the wildernesses of America. We haven’t seen true wilderness here since the retreat of the glaciers at the end of the last ice age, at least 10,000 years ago, when woolly mammoths, lynx and hyenas roamed the newly revealed tundra. Everything in today’s countryside has been affected, in one way or another, by the hand of man. Only the most remote and inaccessible rock faces, which cannot be reached by grazing sheep, can now be said to be truly ‘wild’.
Prevention, not protection Yet the potential benefits of allowing some land to return to a wilder state are attracting attention and debate. One of the biggest news stories of recent winters has been the flooding, especially in the north of the country. Much has been made of the need for greater flood protection; but a number of environmentalists now believe that there is a greater need for longer-term flood prevention on the apparently wild moorlands upstream. In a time of rapid climate change, the sensitive management – including rewilding – of land in the catchment areas upstream of the flooded towns and villages has become vitally important. A growing consensus among conservationists is that the creation of burned-and-drained grouse moors, such as those in the Peak District and
CPRE senior rural policy campaigner Graeme Willis sees the idea of rewilding landscapes as a major challenge to the organisation, which he says is too often perceived, wrongly, as wanting the countryside to be ‘preserved in aspic’. ‘Our English landscape has always been dynamic,’ Graeme explains. ‘It has changed constantly throughout history – and not always in what we would regard as the right direction. ‘The move towards a more vibrant landscape, possibly through rewilding, and not necessarily just in the uplands, could be a powerful opportunity to create more interesting landscapes,’ he continues. ‘More interesting for nature, but also for people, who have always regarded it as a source of inspiration and enjoyed a strong sense of connectivity with it.’ However, as Graeme notes, the uncertainty around Brexit was bound to result in big changes in farming policy, raising the big question: ‘What is the landscape for?’ CPRE’s Vision for the Countryside hints at the way our landscape could be enhanced through subtle changes. It hopes that by 2026, ‘there is much more woodland, rich in wildlife… connected by a grid of wildlife-friendly green corridors, including hedgerows’. And in an obvious nod towards the principle of rewilding, it foresaw areas of remote uplands being ‘deliberately left to nature and natural processes, becoming wilder in character’. W W W.C PR E .O RG .U K
CPRE_SPRING_17.indb 11
11
16/03/2017 20:04
SPRING 2017
|
BIG READ
A new balance? A leading proponent of this idea is Rewilding Britain, a charity set up in 2015, which believes a programme of rewilding could reverse centuries of ecological damage. Over the next century, its aim is to ‘restore’ at least one million hectares in Britain. ‘We see rewilding – or the large-scale restoration of naturally functioning ecosystems – as an opportunity to find a new balance between people and nature, where both can thrive,’ says chief executive Rebecca Wrigley. ‘Wildlife in Britain is faring worse than in most other countries in the world, and the living systems on which we all depend are struggling. Our upland communities are also facing decline – particularly in the face of the uncertain future of farm subsidies.’ Rebecca adds that the resurgent wildlife created by rewilding would attract visitors and enable more local people to earn a living from the countryside. A survey for Natural England found that there were about 2.85 billion visits to the natural environment in England, resulting in spending of £17.6-£24.5bn.
Stewardship of the land Of course, not everyone agrees with the idea of rewilding – nor that grouse moors are a cause of downstream flooding. The Moorland Association, representing moorland owners, argues that under their stewardship these landscapes are being financially underwritten by shooting – without which heather moorland would soon be ploughed, transformed with fertiliser into improved grassland, and enclosed. The association claims that without its members the moors would diminish or disappear, and with them much of the wildlife that makes these landscapes its home. And the right to roam across these unenclosed uplands would also be lost forever. The Moorland Association’s chairman, Robert Benson, said recently: ‘Healthy peatland has an essential part to play in water quality and run-off and trapping carbon. The process also boosts the habitats and food supplies of our precious moorland wildlife, including notable endangered bird species and plants.’ Commenting last November on the report of the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on flood prevention, Moorland Association director Amanda Anderson pointed out that there were no cases where an individual grouse moor had been linked to a flood event: ‘The dog that hasn’t barked in this report is the claim that managing moorland for driven grouse shooting causes flooding. We hope that this argument can now be consigned to history.’
Kinder surprise Last summer, Natural England released figures that showed around 44,500 acres of peatland had
Cotton grass thriving on Kinder Scout today
Do you think the idea of rewilding could benefit the countryside? Or are you involved in a project to increase wildlife near you? Tell us about it at cpre@thinkpublishing. co.uk or write to us at the address on page 8.
been repaired and revegetated on grouse moors, with more to come. The rewilding and re-wetting of moorlands like Kinder Scout and Bleaklow in the Peak District has been vigorously pursued in recent years by bodies such as the National Trust and the Moors for the Future Partnership. The resulting changes in the previously bleak, overgrazed landscape of Kinder are remarkable. Today, walkers see more greenery here than they have in a generation. In late summer, vast drifts of nodding cotton grass heads can make it look like there’s been an impossibly early snowfall. The Saharan-like acres of bare, dusty peat have been recolonised by heather, bilberry and cloudberry. This work is also benefiting the wildlife of the area, making it more habitable for species such as mountain hare, red grouse, golden plover and common lizard, and associated (and rare) predators including peregrine falcon and goshawk. Over the past five years, the National Trust has installed 6,000-plus hand-built dams on its Kinder estate, slowing down the water that would normally race down the grips, groughs and gullies and into the rivers below. These have raised the water table on the moor, allowing the water to gradually trickle off the land, thus increasing the capacity of water it can absorb in Kinder’s heavy rains, and alleviating the risk of flooding downstream. The trust has also restored almost 500 acres of fast-eroding bare peat bog. This acts as a carbon trap, preventing harmful CO2 escaping into the atmosphere.
Perhaps most importantly, the trust took the controversial decision to fence the summit of Kinder Scout in 2011 – and removed the sheep. In the first 20 years after it acquired the Kinder estate in 1982, the trust’s staff moved a staggering 38,000 sheep from the mountain. ‘The work we are doing in the Peak District is of vital importance, not just to wildlife, but for the communities that surround these moors,’ says trust project officer Tom Harman. ‘It’s important people understand the multiple benefits nature conservation can have, helping to provide clean water, reduce the risk of flooding and increase the natural value of these amazing places.’
Moors for the future Working with and alongside the trust, the £14m, EU-funded MoorLIFE 2020 project was launched last May to help the Moors for the Future Partnership transform moorlands across the South Pennines and Peak District. ‘It will protect the integrity of 9,500 hectares of active blanket bog through revegetating bare peat, improving hydrology and diversifying existing vegetation,’ says Moors for the Future manager Chris Dean. The Moorland Association is fully supporting the work of Moors for the Future: ‘The Moors for the Future project, in which local moorland custodians are involved, is the right way forward for moorland regeneration,’ said Amanda. So maybe the tide is turning towards an emerging partnership between landowners and conservationists that would save our denuded heritage of peat moorlands, leaving our countryside in better shape for people and nature. For as the naturalist and philosopher Henry David Thoreau wrote in his classic 1862 essay Walking: ‘In Wildness is the preservation of the World.’
12 W W W.C P R E .O RG .U K
CPRE_SPRING_17.indb 12
16/03/2017 20:04
MY ENGLAND
|
SPRING 2017
Chrome Hill in the Peak District
St Benet’s Mill in Norfolk
My England
One of England’s leading landscape photographers, Martin Birks, shares the secrets behind some of his most stunning images Despite its incredible big skies and coastline, Lincolnshire is a relatively undiscovered county. This creates an opportunity to capture places that many people haven’t seen before, so you can take quite personal images. We don’t have the dramatic scenery of the National Parks, but the Lincolnshire Wolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty has to be one of the most underrated places in the country – very scenic, but usually empty. It’s best in summer, with wide views over rolling farmland alive with golden crops and bales. It was amazing to see my photo on an 80-foot screen at Waterloo Station! The image, of St Benet’s Mill in the Norfolk Broads [above right], was my first Landscape Photographer of the Year-commended photo in 2014, and all the winners and commended entries were exhibited there. It was equally surreal to feature on live radio with awards founder, the great photographer Charlie Waite, and hear him say that ‘on that winter dawn, Martin was “in the zone” and produced an image that was really moving’. A great photo can often be about interesting weather. Misty valleys, foggy woodland, moody skies and dramatic light can all bring the scene to life. For St Benet’s Mill, I got up early on that cold winter’s day to try to capture the frosty morning and eerie atmosphere of the Broads. When it’s freezing outside, it can be hard to motivate yourself, but it can be worth it.
CPRE_SPRING_17.indb 13
Last September, my motivation was a forecast of a morning mist lifting into a sunny day. I’d wanted to capture a sunrise in the White Peak area of Staffordshire. It was a difficult drive, in thick fog, but I made it up the hill just after 6am. I enjoyed talking to some other photographers while the sun came up. When one of them went back down the hill, it looked like he’d add some interest to the scene. That shot [above left] ended up winning the ‘Living the View’ category in last year’s competition.
Martin Birks was one of the Take a View Landscape Photographer of the Year winners in 2016. His work can be enjoyed at www. martinbirksphotography.co.uk and in collections 8-10 of the Landscape Photographer of the Year books (AA, £25). Enter the 2017 competition, supported by CPRE, at www.take-a-view.co.uk
I like to capture the nature of each season. Autumn is always enjoyable in the Peak District – from the green of Chrome Hill to the misty Hope Valley. But the Lake District is the place to go for the best October colours, in what are surely the most stunning landscapes in England. A summer’s day doesn’t always work, but a place like Roseberry Topping in the North York Moors really comes alive in May – the light is lovely. Plus, the wild garlic, bluebells and rapeseed do smell good! Smaller, more intimate views come into their own in Lincolnshire. As Charlie Waite says: ‘Lincolnshire has tiny, tucked-away places that the landscape photographer can find and bring to wider attention.’ That’s really how I started in landscape photography as a hobbyist in 2010 – just trying to capture the local countryside. I found one of Charlie’s ‘tucked-away places’ near Benniworth Haven last year. I captured a gate smothered in cow parsley on an early summer morning [below]. I was delighted that CPRE chose it as its favourite picture of last year’s Take a View competition, saying the image ‘perfectly captures the essence of the countryside as a haven of tranquillity’. You don’t need expensive equipment to take award-winning photos. You can take a great image on a camera phone these days. It’s the photographer’s vision that’s the most important part; how you use the elements and the light.
Benniworth Haven in Lincolnshire
Send a shot you’ve taken of your favourite undiscovered place to cpre@thinkpublishing.co.uk by 31 July for a chance to win one of five copies of the Landscape Photographer of the Year 10th anniversary collection.
16/03/2017 20:04
Best foot
forward Guy Procter, editor of Country Walking magazine, on how challenging readers to walk 1,000 miles in a year has changed lives – and why a new litter-picking partnership with CPRE is set to change the face of the landscape
S
ometimes people ask me ‘How do you fill a magazine about walking every month?’ in a similar way one might quiz the editor of, say, the Beige Paint Review or Polystyrene Cups Compared. The truth is, I find it hard to answer – not because (as I think they suspect) it’s a confidence trick we've been pulling on vulnerable loners for 30 years, but because it's about everything. Walking, like water, is in one sense utterly banal; colourless, flavourless and a fact of life so everyday as to be hardly worthy of comment. But just as boring old water is crucial to every leaf and landscape, every strawberry, scientist and swan, so I believe walking is critical to fully experiencing the world around us, and cultivating the one within. That’s what my experience – and my messages – tell me, at any rate. The last time I saw anything on Facebook to do with my friends or family was about a year and a half ago. That was about the time we set up a challenge at Country Walking to encourage people
to walk more; quite a lot more, in fact: 1,000 miles in a year. It’s the sort of number that stops people in their tracks, but when you break it down it’s only 2.74 miles, or a little under an hour, every day. It’s just a question of doing it. I thought it might help us sell a few more magazines. It ended up changing lives – not least my own – and by the magic of word of mouth, grew until it has ended up expanding to a group of 25,000 – or slightly more than greeted JFK in his hometown of Boston on the climactic rally of his 1960 presidential run. ‘Let's get this country moving again’ he told them, a metaphor and a message of hope that wouldn't have been lost on the #walk1000miles challengers with whom I daily correspond on Facebook, Twitter and email.
One step at a time There’s Anne, who says walking has cured her of the loneliness she never confided to her night shift-working husband, and which had nearly led her to ‘disappearing’ last year, before the magazine
containing the challenge appeared (unordered, strangely) on her doormat last spring. There’s Sally, whose degenerative bone condition doctors said would soon have her largely confined indoors, popping painkillers – they’re not calling it degenerative anymore. Or Mark, a young father whose depression and anxiety had got so bad he really couldn't leave the house; yet who found in the friendly yet insistent spur of that 2.74 miles a day the key that would release him. Or Lisa, for whom her daily walks – now an uninterrupted sequence since April last year – have seen her, she says, ‘fall in love with the world again’. Or Pam, single mother of five, who at 81 has finally found a group of people who can keep up with her appetite for adventure (or almost – Ben Nevis last summer was one thing, this year she plans to go wing walking). Anyone who’s walked in the English countryside knows that everyone says hello. If that hinted at a nationwide network of latent comradeship, this was confirmation. By the end of 2016, the challenge’s
14 W W W.CP R E .O RG .UK
CPRE_SPRING_17.indb 14
16/03/2017 20:04
INSPIRATION
|
SPRING 2017
Walking brings out the best in us, lubricating conversation and lessening anxieties; keening appetites and kindling wonder From hiking (opposite) to rural strolls (this image), walking can change lives – as the #walk1000miles challenge (above) has shown
Facebook group, which started with a membership of one, had seen over a million likes. In other words, on an average of 2,740 occasions every day, something was posted by a member about their walk to which another’s heart returned an echo. It had become a hothouse for new friendships, mutual encouragement and self-surprise – a sort of happiness factory, which, with increasing numbers of members from Australia and North America, was soon running day and night shifts.
take uncommon chutzpah to take on such a mission single-handedly, but as part of an army of 25,000 deployed from Bodmin to the Borders, walking between them 25 million miles and more this year – that's a pretty effective countrysidecleaning machine to be a part of. Which is what we find ourselves doing, with the help of our friends at CPRE, Campaign for National Parks and Keep Britain Tidy, under the banner of the Country Walking Spring Clean this year.
Spring clean
Sense of mission
Imagine the work a factory of 25,000 can do! Which got us thinking – what crusade might a group that size go on, in pursuit of good not just inward, but outward? A chance meeting on a Peak District moor gave us our answer. Here we met Mike, an un-uniformed litter picker who was (he explained) just doing it because he'd noticed people drop less litter, the less litter there was. He'd filled two bags – and he filled our group with inspiration. It might
It’s perhaps a truism to say walking brings out the best in us, lubricating conversation and lessening anxieties; keening appetites and kindling wonder. It’s certainly true you can't come back from a countryside plod feeling anything but pleasantly placid. But add a personal and public sense of mission, and it is astonishing how your horizons and your ambitions broaden – and how much you begin to feel walking can really achieve.
Country Walking, CPRE and partners are encouraging all walkers to lend a hand with litter picking and join the Country Walking Spring Clean this year. Find out how to get involved and share your pictures and stories at www.livefortheoutdoors.com/cwspringclean
W W W.C PR E .O RG .U K
CPRE_SPRING_17.indb 15
15
16/03/2017 20:04
SPRING 2017
|
COMMUNITY
Fruitful
ground
Neil Sinden shares the story of a unique and historic rural community – Ruskin Land in the Wyre Forest
M
any of us dream of living in the woods. It may be something to do with our ancestors. A thousand years ago, most of England would have been wooded, and many of our settlements located at the edge of large areas of forest. We are fortunate that some of these ancient woodlands remain today, but few of us are lucky enough to live nearby. I am fortunate to be one of those lucky few. After standing down as CPRE’s policy and campaigns director, in 2015 I moved with my wife, Lynne, to live and work in the heart of the Wyre Forest near Bewdley in Worcestershire. Our home for the past two years has been St George’s Farm at Ruskin Land, surrounded by oak trees that form part of one of our most important ancient woodlands. It’s a smallholding with a fascinating history – and an exciting future.
LYNNE ROBERTS
Origins of Ruskin Land St George’s farmhouse stands on land given to the Victorian visionary John Ruskin in 1877. Having made his name as a trenchant art critic and pioneering opponent of urban and industrial sprawl, Ruskin in his later life saw the need to put into practice his increasingly radical ideas for political and social reform. In 1871 he set up an organisation called the Guild of St George, ‘to take some small piece of English ground, beautiful, peaceful and fruitful’ to provide opportunities for working people to cultivate land and reconnect with nature. The original gift of 20 acres of woodland near Bewdley was proposed in 1876 by George Baker, a successful Quaker businessman, prominent local politician and, briefly, Mayor of Birmingham. Ruskin called the plot ‘one of the loveliest districts
of Worcestershire, so precious, in its fresh air and wild woodland, to the neighbouring populations of large manufacturing towns’. Another major figure in the origins of Ruskin Land, as it was to become known, was William Buchan Graham, a lithographic draughtsman from Glasgow. Like many working men at the time, Graham found inspiration in Ruskin’s writings, and joined the guild to help it realise its mission to provide opportunities for ordinary people to farm the land. Following the clearance of some of the coppiced oak woodland, he drew up plans for an orchard on what was then known as St George’s Land, planting mainly plums, as was the Victorian fashion, but also apples, pears and cherries. Shortly afterwards, however, Graham fell out with Ruskin over the challenges of establishing a viable farming operation. It wasn’t until 1908 – a few years after Ruskin’s death in 1900, and shortly before Graham’s death a year later – that St George’s farmhouse was built on the site. Soon after its completion, Frederick and Ada Watson, Ruskin followers from Liverpool, moved in with their three children and set up a smallholding. For more than 20 years, the family sold chickens, eggs, fruit, apple juice, honey and other produce in the local market at Bewdley. When they moved out in the 1930s due to failing health, Ruskin Land was leased by the Guild to a local family who farmed the land in a conventional manner, grubbing up the orchard with the aid of grants from the Ministry of Agriculture.
Wildlife in the Wyre In the late 1920s, alarmed at the mass planting of conifers by the recently formed Forestry
This image: The Wyre Forest is a haven for people and wildlife. Left: Dexter cattle are grazing the area. Right: Woodland butterflies abound
Commission, the Guild decided to acquire more woodland in the Wyre Forest. The forest, which today comprises more than 2,600ha, was then predominantly oak coppice, supplying fuel and materials for local industries such as iron smelting. Until the early 20th century, when traditional woodland industries started to decline, it would have supported a diverse range of economic activities, including charcoal burning, bark peeling for local tanneries, and basket- and besom-making. Benefiting from the more enlightened policies of the modern Forestry Commission and the conservation strategies currently upheld by Natural England, today the Wyre Forest is one of our most precious woodland wildlife sites. Nearly 550ha of it – including much of the land owned by the Guild – is now designated a National Nature Reserve. This provides valuable habitat for various species of fritillary and other butterflies, as well as many of our increasingly rare woodland birds,
16 W W W.C P RE .O RG . U K
CPRE_SPRING_17.indb 16
16/03/2017 20:05
including the goshawk. Small meadows and orchards, associated with the smallholdings and working horses that were once common here, can be found throughout the forest, often along watercourses such as Dowles Brook, and add greatly to the diversity of its wildlife. ‘Ruskin recognised the special nature of Wyre and the value of studying the beauty of the natural world,’ says Rosemary Winnall, a member of the Wyre Forest Study Group, which has been monitoring local wildlife for more than 20 years. She believes we should ‘celebrate his legacy, through the development of a passion for nature and for place, with local communities and visitors of all ages and abilities’.
Restoring lost orchards The restoration of old orchards was one of the motivations for the establishment of the Wyre Community Land Trust in 2007. Although the Community Land Trust (CLT) movement in
‘Ruskin recognised the special nature of Wyre and the value of studying the beauty of the natural world’
England is relatively young, there are now more than 200 of these organisations, set up by and for local people to develop community assets, across the country. Most were established to deliver affordable housing, but the Wyre CLT has shown their considerable potential for supporting sensitive land management programmes and communitysupported agriculture and woodland projects. Until the 1930s, this part of Worcestershire was renowned for producing cherries. Remnant cherry trees and orchards can still be found in the area, and have recently been the focus of targeted conservation management. A herd of Dexter cattle, managed by the CLT, performs another conservation role: grazing old meadows and helping to maintain the diversity of the local flora and the fauna that depends upon them. The CLT now employs five staff and involves around 40 regular community volunteers, who carry out vital tasks such as fencing, scrub W W W.C PR E .O RG .U K
CPRE_SPRING_17.indb 17
Mayfield Village High Street, East Sussex.
17
16/03/2017 20:05
SPRING 2017
|
COMMUNITY
This image: St George’s Farm. Below: The restored orchard
John Ruskin’s influence John Ruskin (1819-1900) was not just the most famous art critic of the Victorian age, but an influential thinker who had a major impact on the early environmental movement in Britain – as these key moments reveal.
The restoration of old orchards was one of the motivations for the establishment of the Wyre Community Land Trust in 2007 clearance, tree planting and orchard maintenance. Last year, volunteers helped to re-establish an orchard of 151 apple, pear, plum and cherry trees on the site originally planted by Graham more than 120 years ago.
Involving the community As well as helping out with practical tasks, much of our time here has been focused on organising public events to introduce people to the beauty of this part of the forest as well as the work of the CLT and Guild of St George. These have included a blossom walk and talk by the local beekeeping group, and a summer butterfly picnic with the support of Butterfly Conservation. Alongside Apple Day last October, we ran three days of creative activities in association with The Big Draw, a nationwide festival of drawing (one of Ruskin’s great passions) that was initiated by the Guild of St George. ‘This was a wonderful opportunity to reflect upon the natural treasures that surround us, by engaging with them creatively in different ways,’ says Hilton Mayston, a regular volunteer who helped run the event. ‘Such opportunities are increasingly important in a world that can easily forget the cultural value and resonance of the local landscape.’
Changing woodlands The CLT has now embarked on an exciting project to manage the woodlands it cares for more actively, as a basis for both improving biodiversity and regenerating the local woodland economy. Contractors have completed the first stages of these plans, thinning two areas of dense oak and restoring areas of wooded pasture and coppice with standards (a traditional form of managed woodland, in which some trees are regularly cut back for timber and fuel, while other ‘standard’ trees are left to mature). Over the past six months, volunteer groups have established a wood yard and workshops that will enable the CLT to process some of the timber that has been felled. Activities will include making gates and garden furniture, supplying firewood and producing charcoal.
Lessons for the future It’s inspiring to see how local people can play such a central role in improving the quality of the local landscape. As part of this work, we have been pleased to help the development of the cultural and educational activities of the Wyre CLT. The connection with Ruskin’s Guild of St George has helped guide decisions about how to care for the land in ways that align with its aims to promote
1868: In The Mystery of Life and its Arts, Ruskin prescribes an early version of a Green Belt for his ‘ideal city’: ‘so that there may be no festering and wretched suburb, but open country, with a belt of beautiful garden and orchard round the walls, reachable in a few minutes’ walk.’ 1870: His Lectures on Art broached the need for good planning: ‘it is not possible to have any right morality, happiness or art, in any country where cities are spreading by patches and blotches over the country they consume.’ 1876-1877: Ruskin’s protests against the extension of railways to Cumbria (‘the frenzy of avarice is daily blasting the cultivable surface of England into a treeless waste of ashes’) and the Thirlmere reservoir proposal led to the founding of the Lake District Defence Society in 1883, which inspired the creation of the National Trust and future campaigns for National Parks.
BY OLIVER HILLIAM
LYNNE ROBERTS
1849: Ruskin’s essay The Seven Lamps of Architecture anticipates the idea of sustainability: ‘God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us, and we have no right, by anything that we do or neglect, to involve them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it was in our power to bequeath.’
the arts, craftsmanship and the rural economy. More active today than ever before, the charitable Guild supports a wide range of innovative projects, particularly in the Wyre Forest, where it now owns about 150 acres of land, fulfilling Ruskin’s original vision of linking people with the natural world in meaningful, creative and productive ways. These same values, I believe, should underpin the way we relate to the land wherever we live: in the country, town or in the midst of ancient woodland.
Find out more about Ruskin Land in Neil Sinden’s blog at neilsinden.wordpress.com
18 W W W.C P R E .O RG .U K
CPRE_SPRING_17.indb 18
16/03/2017 20:05
DISCOVER
Country castles
|
SPRING 2017
2 for 1 tickets
England’s castles are a majestic feature of the landscape, bearing witness to centuries of change. As a CPRE member, you’ll enjoy special offers on entry at all these properties 2 for 1 tickets
Rockingham Castle, Northamptonshire Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire
Open 11am-5pm, Sundays to Wednesdays, 2 April to the end of October Used as a location for BBC TV dramas Wolf Hall and Poldark, this castle dates back to the 12th century. Visitors can marvel at the 14th-century Great Hall, hung with rich tapestries, and explore the medieval larders and kitchen. Set in terraced gardens, the castle is a great destination for families, with outdoor games and a butterfly house open from May to September. Make sure to visit the Yurt Tea Rooms for light lunches and afternoon teas.
Half-price admission
Chillingham Castle, Northumberland
Open 12 noon-5pm daily, except Saturdays, 3 April to the end of October Winner of the Independent on Sunday’s 'Top 50 castles in Europe', 800-yearold Chillingham has seen visits from royalty including Edward I and James I. Discover the spectacular Tudor galleries and grimace at the former castle dungeon and torture chambers. Designed by royal gardeners Capability Brown and Sir Jeffrey Wyatville, the castle’s grounds are horticulturally splendid, with ornate Italian gardens, lakes and woodland walks.
Castle open 1-4.30pm, grounds 12 noon-5pm, Sundays and Bank Holiday Mondays, 16 April to the end of May; Tuesdays, Sundays and Bank Holiday Mondays, June to the end of September Built on the orders of William the Conqueror in 1086, Rockingham Castle occupies a dramatic position overlooking the Welland Valley. Inside, be transported back to Tudor England in its Great Hall; witness the preparations for a grand dinner in the Victorian Old Kitchen; and enjoy the treasured paintings hanging in the Long Gallery. Outside, take a stroll around its terrace and rose gardens.
Lullingstone Castle & the World Garden, Kent
House open 2-3pm, World Garden 12 noon-5pm, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, 1 April to the end of September, and Sundays only in October Henry VIII and Queen Anne were just some of the regular visitors to Lullingstone Castle, a family estate with origins reaching back to Half-price Domesday. The 15th-century manor admission house and gatehouse are set within 120 acres, offering picturesque lakeside and country views. A gardener’s paradise, the acclaimed World Garden contains more than 8,000 unusual plants, laid out by their countries of origin.
2 for 1 tickets
2 for 1 tickets
Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire
Castle open 12 noon-3pm, gardens 11am-6pm daily, except Fridays and Saturdays, 2 April to 28 September It’s hard not to be awed by this castle’s sumptuous exterior, which has been enlarged and embellished over its 700-year history. Admire its tapestries, paintings and ceramics, before enjoying a homemade cake in the coachhouse tearoom. The grounds include an adventure playground and cycle trails, with bike hire available on-site.
To plan your next day out, see your CPRE members’ guide for details of these discounted destinations, and many more
Knaresborough Castle & Old Courthouse Museum, Yorkshire
Open 11am-4pm daily, 5 April to 10 September (until 5pm, 22 July to 3 September) and October half-term (21-29); grounds open all year round Destroyed in the English Civil War, Knaresborough Castle has a turbulent and fascinating 900-year history. Head over to the Old Courthouse Museum, a former Tudor courthouse filled with interactive exhibits, to learn more about its past. After exploring the remains of Edward II’s King's Tower and the castle dungeons, why not enjoy a picnic in the grounds? W W W.C PR E .O RG .U K
CPRE_SPRING_17.indb 19
19
16/03/2017 20:05
SPRING 2017 | VIEW FROM HERE
B
y the 1920s, writers and artists had been depicting the countryside Laurence Housman, Clement Attlee, Compton Mackenzie, H E Bates and for hundreds of years, but usually in a sentimental, nostalgic way that Hugh Walpole. bore little resemblance to the realities of rural life. In fact, little had The Countryman also had a major impact on the founding of CPRE, which, changed in rural areas for centuries, and by 1927 the countryside was in the of course, also recently celebrated its 90th anniversary. As Oliver Hilliam at midst of an agricultural depression, with low wages, poor housing and much CPRE explains: ‘Robertson Scott’s 1925 collection of essays, England’s Green talk among the chattering classes about what were termed ‘rural and Pleasant Land, was not just a catalyst for his launch of The problems’. In that same year, journalist John W Robertson Countryman: it had a major influence on the formation of Scott decided to create a magazine for the countryside: CPRE. Its founding manifesto, The Preservation of Rural The Countryman. He disliked the way the countryside England, expressed concern for the survival of village was often depicted and, through the magazine, life, prompted by Robertson Scott’s dire warnings set about trying to change people’s perceptions, about the fabric of the English countryside.’ as well as improve the lives of country folk. Landscape of change ‘The British countryside,’ Robertson Scott There have, of course, been many changes in wrote, ‘is that part of Britain from which The Countryman, which celebrates rural Britain since the magazine was founded. our race springs, and the vigour, on which During World War II, the Government took its depends the intellectual balance of the nation its 90th anniversary in April, chance to take control of the countryside – and and its power to serve not only its own people has always been a true voice its grip on agriculture and land management but the world.’ He was passionate in his mission has tightened ever since. to ensure that what he saw as the true voice of of the countryside, as editor Just as importantly, the countryside has opened the countryside was heard. He did not shy away Mark Whitley explains up to everyone. There are myriad active societies, from showing readers the squalid side of rural life; trusts and pressure groups concerned with every aspect the ‘dank, dark, incommodious cottages, a shame to of rural life. Meanwhile, town and country have merged Britain’. He argued for improved housing, fairer wages and through extensive urban development, and many rural better facilities such as new village halls. residences are now holiday cottages or second homes. ‘The little green book’ Over the past 90 years The Countryman has had to change For many years, what became known as ‘the little green book’ and adapt, just as the countryside has had to change and was based in the Cotswolds (first in Idbury, then in Burford). adapt. But the magazine is still based in rural England (now in The magazine covered a bewildering variety of topics, ranging the Yorkshire Dales) and continues to examine key rural issues from such worthy considerations as the spread of electricity – such as the impact of Brexit, and the continuing battle to rural communities and suitable jobs for ex-servicemen to between preserving green spaces and providing affordable the strange behaviour of wildlife and ‘The Country House housing – as well as taking a light-hearted look at country life. Aeroplane’ (which offered instructions on how to build one’s We hope we still embody our founder-editor’s ethos of being own airfield!). Contributors included George Bernard Shaw, ‘a champion of rural causes’.
Rural champion
WIN A COUNTRYMAN SUBSCRIPTION We have three one-year Countryman subscriptions to give away, worth £46.80 each. Winners will also receive a copy of The Countryman Companion Number 2. CPRE members can also enjoy a 12-issue subscription for the price of six
SHUTTERSTOCK
CAMPAIGN TO PROTECT RURAL ENGLAND 5-11 Lavington Street, London SE1 0NZ 020 7981 2800 | info@cpre.org.uk | www.cpre.org.uk Oliver Hilliam, 020 7981 2809, oliverh@cpre.org.uk Published by Think | cpre@thinkpublishing.co.uk | www.thinkpublishing.co.uk
(£23.40) – to claim, please call 01756 701033 and quote offer code CTCPRE90. Offer available for UK addresses only. To be in with a chance of winning, please email your name and address to cpre@thinkpublishing.co.uk with
Win
‘Countryman’ as the subject heading, or send a postcard with your contact details to CPRE/Countryman, Think, Capital House, 25 Chapel Street, London NW1 5DH, by 31 July 2017.
CPRE is a company limited by guarantee, registered in England, number 4302973. Registered charity number: 1089685 CPRE holds and manages data in strict accordance with the Data Protection Act (1998) in order to keep our supporters informed of our activities. Except in the case of supporters who request otherwise, selected voluntary organisations may be allowed access to such mailing information to enable them to send details of their services. Details are held by the Data Protection Registrar.
Views of contributors and advertisers do not necessarily reflect the policy of CPRE nor those of the publishers. © 2017 CPRE. All rights reserved. ISSN 1742-8777 For terms and conditions and details of winners related to promotions in Countryside Voice, email cpre@thinkpublishing.co.uk. Cover photo: The wild beauty of trees and plants growing in a forest in the Peak District. Shutterstock
20 W W W.C P RE .O RG.U K
CPRE_SPRING_17.indb 20
16/03/2017 20:05