Examination of witnesses (Questions 113
- 139)
WEDNESDAY 24 NOVEMBER 1999
COUNCILLOR GORDON
KEYMER, COUNCILLOR
CHRISTINE REID,
COUNCILLOR NICK
SKELLETT and DR
RICHARD SHAW
Chairman
113. Can I welcome you to the final session
this morning on the Rural White Paper and could I ask you to identify
yourselves for the record, please.
(Cllr Keymer) Good morning. I am Councillor Gordon
Keymer, Chairman of the Rural Commission of the Local Government
Association. On my left I have Councillor Christine Reid who is
the Vice-Chair of the Rural Commission of the Local Government
Association. On my right I have Councillor Nick Skellett who is
the Leader of Surrey County Council and to his right we have Dr
Richard Shaw who is the Director for the Environment of Surrey
County Council.
114. Do you want to say anything by way of introduction
or are you happy for us to go straight to questions?
(Cllr Keymer) We will go straight to questions.
Mrs Ellman
115. Should there be a Rural White Paper and
what should be in it?
(Cllr Keymer) I thought this question was well handled
by the CPRE just before us. Certainly we would agree with what
they are saying which is that it does provide an opportunity to
focus on rural issues. We believe there is a great need to integrate
rural policy with other policies, such as regeneration for example.
There are also important rural and urban links and these have
been touched on by the CPRE and, indeed, the Chairman's point
at the end of the last session rather underlined this. We believe
that it is absolutely vital that the Urban and Rural White Papers
are moved together as one. The most obvious issue here is the
question of greenfield and brownfield sites and the debate on
that.
(Dr Shaw) Could I perhaps add to that from my perspective
of working on the previous Rural White Paper. I think there is
a real risk particularly in Central Government that the agenda
is dominated by urban issues. Urban areas are where 80 per cent
of the population live, that is where some of the most visible
and obvious socio-economic problems are. There is a risk that
there is a blind spot to some of the rural problems which do exist.
Therefore, one role of the Rural White Paper is to make sure that
rural issues are held up in public view within Government. Secondly,
some rural problems are different from urban problems. Earlier
in the debate this morning you were talking about traffic problems.
Well the problems in rural areas tend to be more associated with
speeding than with congestion for example. Obviously land management
is different. I think the problems of isolation for people who
are young or who are old or poor or disabled can be much more
acute in rural areas than urban areas. There is a case for a special
rural focus. Thirdly, I think, as the CPRE said just at the end,
the countryside is not uniform, it is diverse. The one thing which
Governments find difficult is to respond to diversity. They are
challenging local Government, quite rightly, to do that through
Best Value and I think the Rural White Paper itself challenges
Central Government to be flexible, to empower local solutions
which respond to diverse local needs. That is quite a different
focus from what Central Government is normally kitted up to do.
116. Do you see any dangers that a Rural White
Paper might minimise the links between rural and urban areas?
(Cllr Reid) Certainly not from the LGA's standpoint
because we have already started to pioneer what we are calling
urban/rural compacts which are links between rural and urban authorities
where their problems overlap, whether it is regeneration, whether
it is transport, whether it is housing, whether it is planning.
We have got about 14 pilot schemes under way at the moment with
a whole range of urban and rural authorities. The artificial boundaries
that local Government over the years has created do not necessarily
answer the problems of the communities. If the local authorities
can work together to solve the specific urban/rural problems then
that can only be to the advantage of both. That is why we are
very keen that the Urban and Rural White Papers are closely linked
and published around the same time, so that we can focus on the
similarities and the differences in the two areas and work together.
Mr Brake
117. Can I just pick up on something Dr Shaw
said. Dr Shaw, you said that the problem in Surrey is about speeding
rather than congestion. Actually what happens is that people speed
through Surrey and then they hit congestion in my constituency
of Carshalton and Wallington. Can Surrey County Council explain
first of all what they are doing about the speed issue but also
what they are doing to try to reduce the congestion that is then
experienced in boroughs on the way in to London?
(Dr Shaw) I think what I said was one of the differences
between urban and rural areas was that rural areas tended to be
more concerned about speeding, urban areas and sub-urban areas
more concerned about congestion. Surrey has both problems. The
north of the county has major congestion problems and the south
of the county has many acute public concerns which are relayed
to us all the time about speeding. We are taking action on both
as best as we possibly can. On the speeding front we have taken
a number of measures in the south of the county under something
called the STAR Initiative to introduce traffic calming in rural
areas and rural villages. We have introduced gateway signs in
the way that the CPRE were referring to to encourage drivers as
they enter rural areas, like the Surrey Hills, to recognise the
rurality of the location. I think we are hampered in that in a
number of respects. First, the problem of speed enforcement, which
Mrs Ellman referred to earlier, is a real one. It is coming up
the agenda of the Surrey Police, I am glad to say, because their
own crime and disorder audit earlier in the year showed that the
top public concern in crime and disorder in Surrey was speeding
and driving behaviour. It is coming up their agenda but it would
be greatly helped by some more flexibility in hypothecation of
fines to help resource speed enforcement.
Chairman
118. Most of those drivers who are actually
concerned about speeding probably break the speed limit themselves,
do they not?
(Dr Shaw) I am sure that must be the case. A little
enforcement now and then would perhaps focus minds on what the
speed limit actually is which would be to the benefit of those
communities.
Mr Gray
119. The same also applies to people who want
rid of congestion in towns, they want rid of congestion so that
they can drive their cars by and large, but that is beside the
point. Let us move on to resources. You make the point that rural
areas achieve lower resources than urban areas. I presume by that
you mean both the RSG but also other types of resources. Are you
arguing that country areas get less per head?
(Dr Shaw) Yes.
120. If the answer to that is yes, fine, my
own experience in Wiltshire confirms that is the case. Secondly,
are you not actually arguing that you need more money in the countryside
because the delivery of services is actually more expensive than
it would be in an urban area?
(Cllr Skellett) I think there is a bias towards funding
for urban areas and that has been historic because of the way
the RSG and local authority funding is arranged. Historically
the London cities, the Mets, have spent far more than shire areas,
sometimes for political reasons. Because the local authorities
are funded on demographic and needs parameters, the parameters
are biased towards urban parameters which are totally valid but
because the analysis weights these parameters towards urban factors,
such as density and not sparsity, there is an underlying imbalance
which has persisted. I think the answer to the second question
really is that we would like to be brought up to the same level.
If I may take as an example, we have had to close schools in rural
areas because the education budgets are restricted. The SSA, for
example, in Surrey in terms of SSA per head of population is now
two and a half times less than Central London and something like
75 per cent less than the Mets in the North. Given the fact that
teachers' salaries are on a national scale, agreed it is weighted
in London, and given that the teacher/pupil ratio is converging
hopefully, you can see that we start from a very difficult situation.
In my first term as Councillor we had to close two schools in
my division which in retrospect lost the community something quite
special. We would like it to be brought up.
121. It is not the case of getting into a detailed
and technical discussion about the SSA system and area cost adjustments
and so on, but there is a very fundamental review of the SSAs
going on at the moment by the new Government. Do you think that
it is likely, and it may be that Councillor Reid might want to
answer this, that the Government will take these considerations
into account and we will see a satisfactory outcome to that review?
(Cllr Skellett) Yes. At the last round the sparsity
factor was introduced, I think on social services partly. There
was a willingness by the Government to look at these rural areas
and the rural imbalance. We hope they consider it more fully.
Mr Gray: We will have you back after it has
been announced and we will see whether you are happy or not. You
will not be because all councils are always unhappy about the
outcomes.
Chairman: Questions, not comments.
Mr Gray
122. I am adding to the general discussion.
The next thing is a completely separate matter. A Ministry for
Rural Affairs, are you in favour or opposed to it?
(Cllr Reid) The LGA has been very anxious to see much
more focus on rural affairs in Government. We feel that rural
affairs have been marginal, peripheral, for rather too long. How
Government achieved this we were less focused on. We are very
welcoming of the new Rural Cabinet Committee. You have been hearing
the rural lobby, it is extremely focused and well informed and
you heard the CPRE this morning, there is some very high quality
evidence around. We have long said that it would be helpful if
there were a group that met annually, every six months, with Government
to feed in the rural viewpoint. The Cabinet Committee cannot operate
in a vacuum, it has to make contact with the outside world as
well as with Government departments. We would be quite pleased
to see this.
Mr Gray: Setting up a Cabinet Committee that
meets every six months is very weak. Surely the point about a
Ministry for Rural Affairs is that there would be a powerful Cabinet
Minister sitting around the Cabinet table shouting the corner
for the countryside. Is that not what we want?
Mrs Gorman: No, we do not.
Mr Gray
123. I was not asking you. Dr Shaw was involved
in these matters previously in the Department for the Environment
when I was also there so it might be interesting to know what
he thinks.
(Dr Shaw) I have two comments on a powerful Ministry.
The first is: will it be powerful or will it actually be weak
and something that other departments could ignore in the battleground
at Whitehall? The second is: there is a risk, because structural
change can be helpful if it is in support of cultural change but
on its own it is not necessarily helpful. If you create a powerful
rural Ministry which then develops a whole new silo which does
not talk to urban ministries, for example, then you are not actually
moving things on. It seems to me that the real challenge of a
Rural White Paper and rural policies is that all departments across
Whitehall should think about the rural dimensions of their policies
all the time, so that you buy in education and health and transport
to rural issues. One of the risks of a rural department is that
you compartmentalise it again. Thinking more laterally, it seems
to me that one of the problems that Whitehall has is its compartmentalised
nature. Civil servants should perhaps be encouraged not to develop
a career path almost uniquely within one department and develop
loyalties to the agenda of that department, but should perhaps
be encouraged to develop a career path moving between three or
four different Government departments or much more freely between
Central Government and local Government, for example, and have
a much more two-way flow. I think that would open people's minds
in being more responsive to diversity to different agendas and,
therefore, the sorts of issues which crop up in the rural areas.
Mrs Gorman
124. I am very interested in knowing what in
Surrey passes for rural poverty for a start. How do you define
this as a problem? What are the parameters?
(Dr Shaw) I think that the LGA might have something
more widely to say about this, but I think we struggle to define
it precisely, partly because it is small-scale and not wide-scale.
We are certainly aware that access is a very important issue for
many people, that although much of Surrey is affluent, land prices
are high, the people who move into the countryside are tending
to buy larger houses, the house-builders like to build larger
houses, that does not mean to say that there are not people in
the countryside who are excluded and who suffer. The more people
that drive cars, the less viable public transport becomes and
the more isolated those people who do not have access to private
cars. So I think access is a critical indicator of rural deprivation.
125. So your definition appears not to be perhaps
based on their income levels or whatever, but on their access
to public transport?
(Dr Shaw) I think access to services, to jobs, to
training, to essential facilities is a critical factor. Access
to adequate housing is also a critical indicator.
(Cllr Keymer) As far as the LGA is concerned, we would
like the Government to acknowledge that the majority of deprived
people do not live in the so-called deprived areas, but live in
all our communities including rural communities and of course
this is an increasing problem with farming now particularly in
mind. We would like to see a commitment of future Government policies
to invest in opportunities of support for these people as well,
and basically it is not so much funding as empowering, flexibility,
and we go back to this expression again of the "rural proofing",
being aware of the problem to make sure that something is done
about it along with concerns about urban areas.
126. Given the fact that so many schemes to
alleviate urban poverty do not seem to have done very much good
over the years since we are constantly funding these areas and
nothing much seems to happen in most towns where the poorer areas
rather seem to remain like that, why do you think that these kind
of Government policies are likely to affect you and should you
not be arguing for more flexibility within your own area?
(Cllr Keymer) Yes, as the Local Government Association,
we are very keen as a matter of principle that the powers should
come down to local Government wherever possible and this is why
I use the words "flexibility" and "empowerment".
Funding obviously, like all councillors, we would like to see
more money, but we feel that great stress should be on the matters
you have mentioned, on flexibility and empowerment, so that we
can actually do something ourselves to try and sort these problems
out.
(Dr Shaw) If I may add to that, I very much agree
with it. I think part of the problem in rural areas is that these
sort of socio-economic problems are often localised and small-scale
and, therefore, the most appropriate response is a local one tailored
to local circumstances. So there has to be the flexibility for
that to be delivered locally whether by local Government or other
voluntary sector partners.
127. Can you give us any examples from your
administration where you are actually implementing those kind
of principles? For example, the schools that closed, did you consider
possibly allowing them a certain degree of freedom of budget which
might have allowed them to make a different decision rather than
the Council coming down and closing them and what degree of flexibility
and what does this flexibility mean?
(Cllr Skellett) Unfortunately I was not leader at
that time and perhaps flexibility could be introduced now. We
had a conference on social exclusion in Surrey at the beginning
of the year and there are many projects, often voluntary, but
with the help of the Council. As to deprivation in a place like
Surrey, I think your first question was to ask whether it exists
and yes, it does exist. There are small areas of overspill where
there are increasingly elderly people on relatively lower and
lower incomes without the ability to access services, and we have
instituted projects by getting the communities together to form
committees and bringing together education, highways, social services
in project teams to try and sort that particular thing out. There
is one particular one in Reigate and Banstead where that is working
quite effectively. Very simply, what we have done is to make a
model of the area and we invite children and the elderly to come
along and to mark on the model which parts they see as problems
where they say, "There is graffiti here", so, "Would
you please mark it there?" and that focuses attention and
it encourages them to work on their own behalf. The other factor
is that where you have had a decline in farming communities, there
are pockets of again often elderly people who have been unable
to move and follow their families. Relating back to previous interviews,
the people actually coming in are the people who can actually
afford to come in and so it is not a question of people who cannot
afford coming into Surrey and then demanding things, but it is
those people who are already there, growing old and finding it
less easy to access services. That is a problem because it is
set beside relatively affluent communities and the Government
tends to believe that they, therefore, do not exist.
Mr Forsythe
128. Why do you consider then that there are
still these pockets of rural poverty when you think of the wealth
of the countryside and the expenditure of the Rural Development
Commission?
(Cllr Reid) The Rural Development Commission's expenditure
was very, very small compared with urban regeneration programmes.
There has been a relatively small amount of regeneration money
focused on the countryside and it has also of course only been
focused on the Rural Development Areas, so there were large areas
of marginal countryside that were untouched by it and gained no
advantage from any of that funding. The difficulty is exactly
the same one, that poverty and deprivation and social exclusion
are focused on tiny areas and are actually very, very difficult
to measure. If you take a small village in a prosperous part of
Wiltshire where I come from and one of your Members comes from—
Mr Gray
129. If we are declaring an interest, she is
Labour and I am Conservative.
(Cllr Reid) You have huge contrasts in income because
there is unemployment, there are very low wages and there are
in the same village people with extremely high incomes. If you
take them even on a ward basis, you do not spot them because the
average income is pretty good. You have to go down to postcodes
at least to start picking up these pockets of deprivation, poverty
and social exclusion. The LGA are very keen for the Social Exclusion
Unit to do a rural study to try and pick out some of these particular
problems, to try and actually gain some evidence. I am sure Mr
Gray will be aware of a study which has just been done in a neighbouring
district council, Kennett, by the Citizens' Advice Bureau where
they employed two researchers to do a very detailed piece of research
to see why the Citizens' Advice Bureau got very few requests from
the villages and all their requests came from the towns. Was it
because the villages were prosperous and did not need the support?
They discovered all sorts of reasons to do with people not liking
in a village to turn up to a CAB office because they are very
well known in their communities, everybody knows everybody and
you do not like to admit that you have got a problem. There is
very low welfare take-up and they were able to pinpoint hundreds
of thousands of pounds in the villages that people were entitled
to, the elderly and so on being entitled to it and not taking
it up because they did not like to ask for it because there is
a different set of social constraints that operate in a village
compared with the market towns in an area. It was an extremely
interesting report, but they were very surprised at what they
found and the levels of social exclusion in what were apparently
prosperous villages.
Mr Forsythe
130. Do you think that the past policies of
the Rural Development Commission were badly targeted then, that
there was bad targeting of them?
(Cllr Reid) No, I do not think so. It was actually
such a small amount of money that it had to be targeted. It was
not enough to do a blanket plan.
131. So it was a lack of money rather than the
targeting?
(Cllr Reid) Yes. The ward that I represent, I think
you had to reach seven indicators which allowed you to be included
and my ward had six of them. Several neighbouring wards in what
looks like a really prosperous area showed some of the indicators
of deprivation and yet we have said all along in the LGA that
the indicators that are used are not necessarily suitable for
rural areas, that the indicators that are used for the distribution
of grant and so on tend to be urban-focused.
(Cllr Keymer) I take your point and, if I can go back
to flexibility and empowerment, you ought to be able to throw
millions at the problem, but because it is so disparate, so spread
out, such small pockets, the only way that you will really deal
with it is by local Government being given the powers to try to
deal with it themselves in their own areas.
Chairman
132. So what you are saying really is that if
a bit of money was thrown at local Government, it would solve
everything?
(Cllr Reid) Yes.
(Cllr Keymer) That would be very welcome, thank you
very much. I would never say no, but I think there are other ways
of doing this. I think it is a three-pronged attack on it.
Miss McIntosh
133. We heard earlier evidence that traffic
management schemes should be created to compensate for particularly
those who do not have access to motorcars or indeed do not have
driving licences. Is it the view of both sets of experts that
this is going to be manageable within a timescale for the purposes
of the White Paper?
(Dr Shaw) I think there are two aspects. One is the
access, that the sort of transport facilities that are available,
and the other is managing the traffic flows on roads and their
intrusion into the rural environment and communities. I think
on the first, our experience is that, and again sorry to use the
word "flexibility", you need flexible, locally-tailored
solutions as they work best. So, for example, whilst we are delighted
to have extra money put into the rural transport fund for our
use and we are making good use of that, we are actually rather
more excited by the rural challenge fund which enables us to develop
innovative approaches which are more responsive to local needs.
I think Surrey was the first county to develop a community transport
strategy and we have put as much as we can into developing local
solutions, like taxi vouchers, volunteer drivers, dial-and-ride,
that sort of approach, which gives better value for money and
better meets needs than a bus from time to time. We are currently
working on a different kind of bus provision which is demand-responsive
and we are looking to a situation where the bus will have a computer
inside it, in the driver's cab, which will link to headquarters
and information will be fed through directly on where the demand
is coming from, so if there is a need for transport in the area,
then the bus will be able to make a small diversion to pick it
up. So it is that sort of responsiveness that I think really works
best on that side. If I may go on to the traffic management side,
one of the difficulties that we have there, I think, is the central
direction in regulation that we have to comply with which often
makes solutions unacceptable in rural communities. Earlier there
was talk of signing. Now, we are required to put in repeater signs,
we are required to have signposts which are of a certain size
and shape and design and we are required to have primary colours
in their presentation. We are also required to have double yellow
lines in the villages even though the local community do not want
that sort of visual intrusion, and that sometimes makes it hard
to gain public acceptance for management measures which might
be made easier if we had a bit more flexibility in those regulations.
(Cllr Skellett) The CPRE would be delighted to know
that in one village where we had to put many repeater signs, the
villagers decided themselves how many repeater signs they wanted
and a number were removed overnight.
Chairman
134. At some expense presumably or did they
give them to you back?
(Cllr Skellett) We could never find them! On the question
of transport, we have a responsibility for providing socially
necessary transport, and that is a duty of the County Council.
We also have the Rural Bus Challenge for promoting novel ideas
in helping people move around the rural areas who do not have
cars. Alongside that, on a voluntary basis we provide a concessionary
fares scheme for the elderly and I believe that there are at the
present time a couple of counties which do it in England. Only
a couple of counties do it because actually it is the responsibility
of the boroughs and the districts. I have always felt that if
we could bring those responsibilities together, we may be in a
position, as the boroughs in metropolitan areas, such as London
are, where the London Transport Act enables, I think, most of
the London boroughs to provide free transport for old age pensioners,
and, for that reason, I am very glad that my parents still live
in London because in Surrey we cannot compete. Because of the
funding for concessionary fares; going to the boroughs and the
districts, and the boroughs and districts not always having the
same policies as ourselves, we are having to negotiate with the
same bus companies for socially necessary routes and at the same
time we are then having to negotiate with them on concessionary
fares and if we could bring this whole area together, we may be
in a position so that the residents of Surrey and the shire counties
are not disadvantaged compared to the London boroughs and the
unitary authorities.
Miss McIntosh
135. We heard earlier, I think, in defining
rural poverty that it was actually access to transport that was
often the key. I am certainly convinced that the more expensive
that cars and fuel become, the on-costs in rural areas are incrementally
greater than to urban areas. We learned from the Pre-Budget Statement
that the Chancellor is minded to introduce hypothecation at two
levels: one, congestion charging that will be allowed to be spent
on local public transport in those areas covered by the local
authority; and the second, perhaps even more importantly, is that
any future increase in fuel duty would be ring-fenced to be spent
on public transport. Now, I see a link here to increasing the
cost of transport in rural areas and I do not know if you would
agree with me there.
(Cllr Keymer) You have touched on the point of the
price of fuel, which I think I am right in saying is above the
rate of inflation that they would hypothecate. Certainly the LGA
feels it has fallen hardest on the rural communities and I would
fully agree with you there. If the Government is to continue to
increase the price of fuel above the rate of inflation, then we
believe or certainly we support that that should be hypothecated
including to rural transport. In fact a point made to a previous
question is that we are also very concerned to make sure that
any funds which are hypothecated to transport, the rural communities
get their full share of that and we believe that is very important.
Chairman
136. Are you fans of Professor Crow or do you
think he got it wrong?
(Cllr Skellett) I think that his report was fundamentally
flawed and we are very disappointed. I do not think, with the
greatest respect, that Professor Crow understands the South-East.
We have agreed with many Government initiatives, one being that
the RPG should be regionally owned, two being that we should abandon
predict-and-provide—it is not a slogan, it is a philosophy—and
move to plan, monitor and manage, and that then gives us the flexibility
that we need in a huge region where we do not actually know where
in detail the development is going to take place. We see his report
as an attack on the Green Belt, and how he justified a previous
statement to say that the Green Belt is sacrosanct, I do not know.
The urban capacity within Surrey from 1991 to 2016 is 48,000 houses.
We submitted that to SERPLAN and we rechecked it a couple of months
ago and, therefore, his figure of 90,000 houses in Surrey from
1991 to 2016 is the equivalent of two Guildfords on countryside
Green Belt in Surrey. Seventy-five per cent of Surrey is Green
Belt and how we can accommodate two Guildfords on the perimeter
of villages and towns is unknown. Moving away from the Southampton
equivalent, I think in the region as a whole it is equivalent
to building 15 to 20 Guildfords on Green Belt or countryside.
On the question of urban renaissance which is a point which has
been missed, he rejected the Government's view of 60 per cent
housing on previously developed land and moved to 50 per cent,
but because he is talking about a much higher number, it does
mean an extra 100,000 dwellings in urban areas, way beyond the
accepted capacity of urban areas, therefore, affecting the possibilities
of urban renaissance and urban regeneration which we all seek.
So in many, many respects, we see ourselves fundamentally opposed
to the assumptions that he makes and we see ourselves relying
much more on the Government's views on sustainability and views
expressed in SERPLAN of course with regards to the economic strategy
of the region. I do not see that Professor Crow has an economic
strategy for the region; it is more a question of observing what
is going on and saying, "Well, let's make sure we do not
hinder it too much". We have a view that it is important
to maintain the economic development of the South-East, it is
important for the rest of the country that we do so, it is important
that we retain the balance between the environment and that ongoing
economic development and we actually see the imbalance within
the region as the key. That is not just an observation. There
are areas, the priority areas for economic regeneration, which
have the capacity to increase and add to the GDP of the region,
and we recognise that there are hotspots which are producing congestion,
overheating where we need different solutions. We do not wish
to restrict economic development in any part of the region, but
we do see an imbalance and we see the analysis of that imbalance
as being the key so that we can further the GDP growth in the
South-East and, therefore, the nation and we see that that has
got to be aligned with regional strategies in other parts of the
country.
(Cllr Reid) And the LGA would support that as well.
137. If you are right, that is all right, but
if he was right, the people who are going to suffer most are the
people who want affordable housing. Now, are you satisfied that
enough affordable housing is being provided within the rural areas
in the South-East?
(Dr Shaw) We are not satisfied that enough affordable
housing is being provided in rural areas or even urban areas in
the South-East.
138. Whose fault is that—the Housing Corporation
for allocating funds?
(Dr Shaw) In part. I think there is a case that the
Housing Corporation should put more funds towards rural areas,
but the panel report appears to suggest that if you build enough
housing, then it will meet the affordable housing need. Well,
that is a pretty unsophisticated approach to affordable housing,
if I may say so. I think we lack the controls and the focus to
provide what is needed in the South-East by way of affordable
housing. We are certainly not building enough. There is not enough
funding going into housing associations, including certainly rural
ones, nor do we have sufficient powers as local planning authorities
to ensure that affordable housing is built. We do have discretion
to ask house-builders to provide a certain proportion of affordable
housing on sites above a certain size, but in rural areas especially,
the sites coming forward are usually small and we do not have
discretion to require that of house-builders on small sites, and
if we do try, the inspectors do not back us up on appeal either,
so we have a real difficulty.
139. Do you go along with the CPRE for a tranquillity
feature or would you prefer to count the number of corncrakes?
(Cllr Reid) I think we would prefer to count the number
of rural services. I think if every local authority in a rural
area started a baseline of the number of schools it had, the number
of rural bus services, if it could actually measure some of the
services it delivered across the rural area and then had some
way to look to see how they had improved, and it had something
to set its targets against, I think that is the way we would like
to see it go, not that we are not concerned about the environmental
quality of our rural areas, we certainly are, but we are in the
business of delivering services to people who need them.
(Cllr Keymer) But all indicators have an implication
of cost to have them produced, not a huge number though.
(Dr Shaw) I think indicators need to be developed
locally and I suggest that county councils are well placed to
do that, based on local knowledge and the contribution of local
partners, to identify the key indicators for that area. I think
the White Paper could well build on those building blocks, coming
from more local levels to identify headline indicators for the
countryside as a whole.
Chairman: Well, on that note, can I thank you
very much indeed for your evidence.
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