Examination of witnesses (Questions 460
- 479)
WEDNESDAY 12 JANUARY 2000
MR RICHARD
WAKEFORD, MR
EWEN CAMERON
and MS PAM
WARHURST
460. Do you have any new ideas to take forward
the Countryside Stewardship scheme?
(Mr Wakeford) Yes. We are currently in the process
of implementing a programme which probably will reach 12 schemes
which we are calling our land management initiative. Each scheme
covers the area of quite a few parishes in which we are trying
to bring together all the income streams and the people with an
interest in the way in which the farm based economy—the
rural economy, not just the farm based economy—actually
functions. We are looking at the streams of money which are available
to help them, looking to see how all those people, instead of
working within the very narrow confines of those schemes, could
pool their funds. How can we put this together? How would the
outcomes be better if we put their funds together and coordinated
better? Could we get a better output? We are doing this because
we believe that the coordinated approach will deliver a more effective
way of delivering a rural economy and rural agriculture that meets
the needs of the public today and in the future. We are doing
it because we believe that we will set in place something which
should be able to inspire the next reform of the Common Agricultural
policy and will certainly have things to teach the way in which
the new rural development regulation is implemented. Stewardship
is part of the rural development regulation. We have also been
working closely with the Ministry of Agriculture in devising the
new rural development regulation schemes which will start to bear
fruit in 2001 and obviously increase as modulation brings more
resources into that area. We are looking to more schemes that
build on and indeed go further than, for example, the Forest of
Bowland scheme in Lancashire, where MAFF have taken the lead but
where there is again a similar scheme where a number of different
parties are contributing. The Countryside Agency is one of the
contributors to that integrated scheme in the Forest of Bowland.
(Mr Cameron) The answer is one looks to the next round
of stewardship to be delivering not only environmental goods but
also social goods as well as economic goods.
461. Could you give any examples of achievements
of national parks in the last few years on sustainable management
of the countryside? Do you see them as having had any particular
achievements?
(Mr Wakeford) The one that immediately springs to
my mind, simply because I made a recent visit in my own time to
Hadrian's Wall, is the scheme that is operating in Northumberland
National Park, using objective 5(b), but using quite creative
agreements with the national park authorities, negotiating with
farmers, whereby farmers are able to obtain the necessary approvals
and some funding to put up new farm buildings of a scale that
is needed to keep their cattle in that part of the countryside.
That actually has the potential to deliver them an income stream
which they could not get from sheep and tourists alone, if I can
put it that way. It is a model scheme because new buildings are
going into the countryside but they are sensitively designed,
providing a new income stream for the farmers in that area, ensuring
that the farm landscape is sustained in that area, which is absolutely
critical for the setting of Hadrian's Wall and for the environmental
qualities of that national park. It is a people scheme, it is
an economic scheme and it is an environmental scheme.
(Mr Cameron) One of our land management initiatives
is in the North York Moors National Park whereby we go to the
farmers and ask them what help they need and we go to the local
councils, the local people and the local NGOs and voluntary organisations
and say, "What do you want from your land managers?"
It is in a very embryonic stage as yet but hopefully the solutions
will be across the board, economic, environmental and social.
There are also certain national parks which are using their beauty
and landscape to market the goods. Exmoor Producers' Association
and North York Moors, for instance, are also trying to sell lamb
on the basis that it comes from beautiful surroundings. There
are quite a lot of inventive schemes that are taking place.
Mr Benn
462. Your evidence to us focuses very heavily
on rural development as opposed to protection of the countryside.
Do I take it that is because you thought that is what was wanted
rather than because that reflects how you see the balance of your
work?
(Mr Cameron) They are integrated and together. We
try very hard not to look in any of our branches or departments
at one element of sustainable development having priority over
another. The idea is to try to get economic, social and environmental
development taking place side by side. Again, in answer to the
earlier question, we believe that the Rural White Paper will focus
on the question of the social aspects of the countryside, the
community aspects. Perhaps that is why our evidence tended to
underline those aspects. Although we do talk about the countryside
and using the countryside as an economic value in the sorts of
schemes we have just been talking about, as well as protecting
it, it is only by using it as such that you will encourage the
positive management that it requires and encourage the sustainable
management that is needed to take it forward.
463. Could you tell us how you are fitting together
the functions of your two bodies to achieve the objective you
have just set out?
(Mr Wakeford) We are in a kind of transitional period
because we have a series of programmes which we inherited from
both the two predecessor Commissions. We deliberately mixed up
the management of the new organisation so that there was a new
mixture. Management actually had the responsibility for projects
coming from both sides, as it were. That is particularly the case
in the regional offices where there is an office for every region
and the teams are working together. Some of the schemes that we
run now have broader objectives. The land management initiative
that we have talked a little bit about has actually been able
to broaden its scope, perhaps deliberately so, because we are
now conscious of the thinking which says we should be looking
at the social aspects of this as well as the environmental and
economic, which was the original objective. We are starting to
think about new schemes. The market towns approach is one but
there are others as well. When we are looking at those new schemes,
those obviously do not have their roots in one side or the other.
They are actually a new approach. It takes time for a team of
staff who have been in one organisation or another to broaden
out their approach. We are achieving that broadening, I think
with success, partly through postings, partly because we have
new people who are not part of either organisation and because
we are gaining successes in establishing new schemes as the Countryside
Agency, not because we are one predecessor body or another.
464. Finally, the PIU proposes changing the
planning regime relating to agricultural land. Can you tell us
whether you support their proposals or not?
(Mr Wakeford) I think that the approach they suggest
there is very sensible and reflects a great deal of what is happening
in the way in which the planning system is operating now. You
are referring to the special position of the Ministry of Agriculture
at the moment in protecting the best and most versatile land,
but in practice the Ministry of Agriculture intervenes in relatively
few cases now. The approach which the PIU report sets out makes
sense, although I am not sure that the methodology they set out
is necessarily the right one. That is something that we want to
look at with the government. The PIU approach is saying, "Yes,
productive agricultural land is an important resource in terms
of sustainable development, but so are important wildlife resources".
What it comes down to is the way in which you balance those different
aspects in that huge equation which is sustainable development
and in which there is no common currency.
(Mr Cameron) The other aspect on PIU and planning
which I thought you were referring to was the question of being
able to have small businesses operating from agricultural buildings
without having to get planning permission in return for the fact
that agriculture should be subjected to full planning regulation,
as other businesses. This we would support.
Christine Butler
465. Looking forward, do you think that the
increasing trend of more and more people going to live or commute
from the countryside or retire there is desirable or undesirable?
(Mr Cameron) I would not necessarily like to comment.
In many cases they add to a rural community; in many cases there
are too many of them. The reason why there might be too many of
them is because they put pressure on the existing inhabitants,
particularly with reference to housing. They tend to be retired;
they tend to be slightly wealthier people. They bring money and
I think it is a recorded fact that houses in the countryside tend
to be 50 per cent more expensive than similar houses in the towns
because of this. We need to address the problems of affordable
housing in the countryside, which is becoming a very serious matter.
The right to buy took 90,000 houses out of that sector in rural
areas in the 1980s. In the early part of the 1990s, the RDC delivered
research which indicated that there were 80,000 affordable homes
required in the countryside and since then there have only been
something like 17,500 homes provided. The Housing Corporation's
rural programme amounts to something like 2.8 per cent of its
full budget. It used to be six per cent. Its definition of "rural"
amounts to some 11 per cent of the population, so there is a problem
there.
466. Do you not think we should be getting a
grip on this, because I did preface my question by "looking
forward"?
(Mr Cameron) I do.
467. Do you think that any strategy could be
delivered by a rural paper or legislation? Do you think it would
have to be an urban/rural link?
(Ms Warhurst) This gets at the very heart of the need
for a mature relationship between the urban agenda and the rural
agenda. It is a free country; people can go where they want. What
we need to make sure is that we are addressing the issues in the
urban centres that are creating opportunities for people to rethink
where they want to live. That is for the urban side to look at.
At the same time, we need to make sure that that impact on the
rural economy is properly understood and that we have in place
the right sorts of legislation and the right policies that deal
with what we believe to be a proper quality of life in the countryside.
That is at the very heart of what Ewen Cameron said in terms of
making sure that there is a range of housing supply within the
countryside that allows those that are indigenous to the countryside
to still remain there and not be forced out because of this impact
of people who can afford more expensive dwellings coming to the
countryside. We also need to make sure that we understand the
interrelationship of that with transport needs, with schooling
requirements, with health requirements and so on. It is very much
about making sure that we have adequate medium term policies to
deal with the pinch points but longer term strategies to make
sure that we provide for a quality of life in the countryside
so that people who wish to live there and remain there, generation
after generation, can do so, but that the impact of those that
would come from urban does not override that delicate balance.
Mr O'Brien
468. Is there any reason, Mr Cameron, why you
do not refer to the transport schemes, as suggested by the Countryside
Commission, in your evidence submitted to us? Why have you omitted
that from your evidence?
(Ms Warhurst) We were looking, as Ewen Cameron said
in the first place, at what we deemed to be six deliverables.
That did not in any way detract against those areas which we think
are extremely important for quality of life in the countryside.
Transport would be absolutely at the heart of that. If we have
not specifically named them in those six points, it is not that
we are not working to make sure that we do have effective transport
partnerships and we do deliver transport that allows people to
be included in the society—
469. Why was it not included in your evidence
submitted? You emphasised in your opening remarks the desirable
objectives and transport was one of them.
(Mr Cameron) A few desirable objectives that we thought
were most important.
470. Transport was one of them.
(Mr Cameron) It slipped under the net.
471. Why is it not included in your written
evidence?
(Mr Cameron) Because it slipped under the net.
472. Has anything else slipped under the net
that we should know about?
(Mr Cameron) There is a whole range of areas that
the Rural White Paper could address, but we considered that it
should address six deliverable objectives, which we have set out.
473. Transport slipped out of that?
(Ms Warhurst) One of the important things about what
the Countryside Agency is trying to say is that we need to make
sure that in all areas of government thinking there is an adequate
response to the rural dimension. We think it is absolutely proper
that that is encompassed within the policies of transport and
so on separately and one does not necessarily have one bag within
which everything rural is considered. That is very much our argument
about rural proofing and moving forward with joint thinking across
government on rural issues. For too long this rural thinking,
in which agriculture has predominated, has been something that
somebody at the end of a corridor has done, very effectively I
might say in that particular area, but not necessarily being owned
by everybody who is thinking about quality of life for the citizens
of this country.
474. The Deputy Prime Minister has on more than
one occasion emphasised the amount of money that has been put
into rural public transport in particular. Yesterday in Parliament
he outlined further developments. Is that not important enough
to have it flagged up by your organisations in their evidence
submitted to us?
(Mr Wakeford) The gist of your question is quite an
interesting one because as a new agency what we brought together
was two sets of programmes. One was experimental programmes which
you referred to that the Countryside Agency operated, which spent
in total rather less than the newer Rural Transport Partnership
which the Rural Development Commission has been operating on behalf
of the government. As an agency, we are now spending over £5
million a year, which is ten per cent of our grant in aid, on
transport schemes, which is an indication that we are doing a
lot of piloting and experimenting of a transport kind. In terms
of what the Countryside Commission was doing—
475. Is that not worth putting in the report,
if you have these schemes?
(Mr Wakeford) We launched those schemes rather well
in a policy document in 1997 which Glenda Jackson launched for
us, when a Minister, called "Rural Traffic—Getting
it Right". We have handed the responsibility over to the
local transport authorities who are preparing local transport
plans. The government has endorsed our report and those policies
should be taken into account as those transport plans are prepared.
What we now want to do as a new agency in the same way as I was
talking about it in other areas is to look at the elements of
the schemes that we inherited from the Countryside Commission
and the schemes that we inherited from the RDC and bring them
together in a coordinated approach that looks at rural transport
partnerships which embrace not only community transport and public
transport but other aspects of traffic management, the sorts of
things that you are referring to, into a kind of joined up and
holistic approach.
476. Give us some indication as to what you
have done in the honey pot areas that attract a large number of
visitors? What has the agency done to introduce schemes to accommodate
the large numbers of visitors coming to those rural areas?
(Mr Wakeford) The main example of that at the moment
is our continuous and significant support for the Lake District
traffic management scheme. This is something which has actually
been locally controversial and it needs to be worked at steadily,
but we have been working very closely there with John Prescott.
477. You have been working with the Deputy Prime
Minister but you feel it is not relative to include in the evidence
submitted to the select committee.
(Mr Cameron) It is inherent in the delivery of rural
services. Transport is certainly one of those services and public
transport plays a crucial part in the delivery of those services.
478. Can you tell us something about the Goyt
Valley scheme?
(Mr Wakeford) The Goyt Valley scheme was an innovative
scheme operated by the Countryside Commission I think starting
in 1968.
Chairman
479. Thirty years ago, and in that 30 years
you have not come up with another park and ride scheme that has
worked. It is a pretty dismal record, is it not, on park and ride
to deal with honey spots?
(Mr Wakeford) I think I would need to take that one
away, Chairman.
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