Select Committee on Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Written Evidence


Supplementary memorandum by Friends of the Forest (COA 33(a))

  In addressing the best use of Coalfield Communities funding within the Forest of Dean District, a basic question that needs resolution is should the Forest of Dean district be treated as a deprived area, and should therefore planning activities give overriding emphasis to economic development?

  It is commonly stated, especially by local councillors, that the Forest of Dean District is a socio-economically deprived area, requisite of jobs and industry. We had assumed, like many readers of the local press, that statement was true. Recently, however, we have had occasion to look at the data sources that underlie the claim. After reading and analysing these data, our conclusion is that the statement that the majority of the Forest District is socio-economically deprived is a myth. It is simply not true.

  The data upon which we have drawn our view come government released unemployment statistics, the government's England—Indices of Deprivation By Ward, 2000, and the Forest of Dean district Council publication—Register of Available Industrial and Commercial Land and Units, Spring/Summer 2003. The England—Indices of Deprivation are arranged into eight domains, covering income, child poverty, unemployment, housing, health, education, access to services, and a single combined index of multiple deprivation. The eight indices of deprivation domains are made up of a combination of 35 separate measures. Most of these measures, in fact, are measures of income.

  The reason why the claim that the "Forest of Dean District is a deprived area" is a myth is simply that the indicators do not show it to be so. Of the 8,414 wards in England, the median ward in the Forest of Dean District comes out at 4,210th on multiple deprivation. It is difficult to get more average than that. To define the District as an area of special need on account of deprivation would mean that half the wards in England would also have to be areas of special need. That is a ludicrous use of the phrase "special need". Even at Ward level, all are outside the 20% of those most deprived in England, for which the term "possessing special need" has been coined.

  It is particularly ludicrous that the myth should be propounded that unemployment is a major problem in the District. With 30 hectares of available space there is no shortage of industrial and commercial accommodation in the Forest of Dean District. The surplus does not, however, mean that there is gross unemployment. Using government produced data, in recent years (2001-03), the overall unemployment rate in the Forest has been lower than the national average, with September 2003 showing only 797 (1.6%) unemployed in the whole of the District. Therefore, any planning policies which use that claim as their justification are bound to be built upon sand, and will fail.

  Given that many of the measures reported in the deprivation indices are actually measures of the number of people in receipt of benefit, an obvious solution would be for the government to improve the level and take-up of those benefits, whilst improving skills and retraining for greater flexibility of employment. This approach would be far more holistically friendly, rather than trying to introduce new major, environmentally inappropriate and/or unsustainable industry to the Forest of Dean area that would degrade it's best and nationally important asset, the Forest of Dean, and in so doing degrade the quality of life for residents and visitors alike.

  For those who don't trust statistics, a walk around the Forest of Dean District reveals that property standards are rising and a number of utilities upgrades are on-going. Rather than a picture of deprivation and decline, you will see signs of activity and new hope—of people looking forward to the future.





 
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