A consortium of countryside bodies today (August 16) publishes what it calls a “do or die” demand for Government action to save the countryside and the future of its local residents.

The newly created Rural Coalition claims that Britain’s villages are dying and is calling on the Government to “deliver on its Big Society vision by radically empowering local people to shape the rural places in which they live”

The group is warning that without this action, rural services face meltdown as spending is cut, housing will out-price all but the wealthiest and rural wages will continue to lag as much as 20 percent behind urban averages.

A report called Rural Challenge outlines detailed proposals to give local people, entrepreneurs, community groups and councils the ability to bring about positive change that will ensure a thriving future for the countryside.

The report is being billed as a “blueprint for delivering the Big Society in the small places which are at huge risk unless action is taken now.”

Key recommendations of the report include:

• Urging the Government to give greater independence to local residents and councils to ensure that rural communities can continue to live and work, and therefore be the foundation of a beautiful and living countryside with a secure long-term economic future.
• Scrapping plans for referendums in the Government’s Community Right to Build scheme which would require 90 percent community support before new, small-scale development can go ahead in villages.
• Town hall planners, local councils and communities should be free to come up with innovative solutions to the rural affordable housing crisis
• A call for the Government to take proper account of the impact of public sector funding cuts on rural areas before finalising the Comprehensive Spending Review in October.
• Pressing for a radical transformation of planning practice to give communities the lead in planning for thriving and sustainable new neighbourhoods when market towns need to grow.

Ironically, the Rural Challenge network was advised and organised by the Commission for Rural Communities, one of the first quangos to the be scrapped by the new Government.

Its members include the Country Land and Business Association, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, Action for Market Towns, the Rural Services Network, Carnegie UK Trust, the Plunkett Foundation, English Heritage, the National Association of Local Councils, the National Housing Federation, and the English National Parks Association.

Full details of the report can be found at http://www.cla.org.uk/Policy_Docs/RuralCoalition.pdf