Social impacts and Landscape Change in Yorkshire

Philip Lowe

Director

Rural Economy and Land Use Programme

State of the C’side 2020; C’side Agency

Fragmentation

Cohesion

Environmentallyunsustainable

Environmentallysustainable

The Countryside Means Business

Go for Green

The Triple WhammyAll on Board

Henley Centre for MAFF/Defra

Countryside as place ofproduction

Countryside forenvironmental consumption

Publicfunding

Crossroads From Brussels with Love

The Good Life Last of the

Summer Wine

Marketled

Common themes in axes

• Economic liberalism v protectionism

• Social cohesion v individualisation

• Concern for environment

Drivers specific to rural issues

• agriculture

• the regionalisation of rural economies

• social values

• countryside recreation and leisure

• counterurbanisation and demographic change

• the differentiated countryside

Rural Typology for local authorities in England and Wales – Central Scenario 2024

Rural Typology

UrbanPeripheral amenityDeep RuralRetirement retreatsTransient RuralDynamic commuterDynamic ruralSettled commuter

Rural Yorkshire

Table 2 – Rural Area Types Generated by Cluster Analysis

Type Description Examples of Rural Districts

‘Dynamic rural’ areas Rural areas with high density of professional and knowledge workers

Market Harborough, East Cambridgeshire

‘Settled commuter’ areas Commuter hinterlands of regional hubs

Stratford-upon-Avon, Castle Morpeth, Harrogate

‘Dynamic commuter’ areas Affluent South East commuter belt

Mid-Sussex, South Oxfordshire

‘Deep rural’ areas Sparsely populated farming communities

Mid-Devon, Alnwick, Ryedale

‘Retirement retreat’ areas High settlement of retirees Lancaster, East Devon

‘Peripheral amenity’ areas Marginal, tourism-dependent areas

North Somerset, Scarborough

‘Transient rural’ areas Declining market towns, former mining areas etc.

North Lincolnshire, Mendip, East Riding of Yorkshire

Dynamic Rural

Consumption Countryside

• rural lifestyle for affluent commuters

• the end of rural ‘separateness’

• a sharp decline in deep rural

• a focus on regional governance

• stronger security focus, ‘gated psychology’, stressed ‘country living’

• dynamic and vibrant with entrepreneurship growing

21st Century Good Life

• tighter land use policy

• ‘tailing off’ of ‘counterurbanisation’

• farmers seen more as environmental / land managers, maintaining the countryside

• dependence on city wealth

• anglo-saxon, no ethnic diversity

• low probability

Rise of the Rurbs

• rural strategy is to promote economic growth

• high investment in transport infrastructure

• technology is key driver in the knowledge economy ‘creative class’

• teleworking and long-distance commute

• moderately affluent, mobile, multicultural commuter belt

• regional hubs attracting major enterprise

• plausible