Friday, 05 July, 2002

John Sheard applauds some good common sense from Countryside Agency boss Ewen Cameron

NOW I have in the past been accused of being somewhat cynical. Quite recently, a correspondent to this column also accused me of "hating" Londoners. Both accusations, I assure you dear reader, are quite foundless.

Just because I have a deep suspicion of the commitment of any politician or civil servant who happens to get handed a countryside brief does not mean I am cynical. Just because most Londoners wouldn't know wheat from a wheatear* does not mean I hate them.

But as someone who for many years has done his humble best to write about country matters in terms simple enough for the average townie to understand, I do sometimes despair: what else can you do when some city children do not know that milk comes from cows not bottles?

So this week, it came as something of a shock to find I had an ally in a top civil servant: Ewen Cameron, chairman of the Government's very own Countryside Agency, whose job is to make rural life better not just for country folk but for townies who come here to relax.

In a speech to the very heart blood of rural England - visitors and exhibitors at the Royal Agricultural Show in Warwickshire - Mr Cameron pledged the agency to "do its part to strengthen the links between town and country."

A key objective of that drive, he promised, would be "focused on the urban fringe where rural diversification into the recreational, health and local produce markets have the greatest potential to link town and country physically, socially and economically."

Now for us in the Yorkshire Dales, this is good news. Although much of our countryside is as close as you can get in England to out and out wilderness, we are surrounded on three sides by heavily built up areas: the old West Riding to the South, East Lancashire and Preston to the West, and the old heavy industrial towns of Teeside to the North East.

Whether we like it or not, millions of urban people in these areas look upon the Dales as their natural playground, to be enjoy by God-given right. And as foot and mouth demonstrated last year, the income they bring into the Dales is essential for the economic survival of rural folk.

Ewen Cameron's plans - if, of course, they get Government funding - will include a drive to educate towns folk that, if they want this playground to survive, they must pay for it in more ways than direct taxation.

This will mean explaining that farming and rural conservation go hand in hand: you can't have one without the other. So, the message will go, if you want to support the countryside, next time you are in the supermarket, shell out a few more coppers for high quality, locally produced food.

In return, perhaps they can also teach the minority of badly behaved townies a few of the simple rules of country life, like not leaving litter, closing gates, keeping dogs of leads etc etc.

With farming going through its greatest turmoil in seventy years, rural business just getting off its knees after FMD, and most rural services under threat from lack of use, country folk need to co-exist in peace with our urban cousins. We may not always like it but in today's changing world, we must lump it at least.

So I wish the Countryside Agency every success is it new project. I shall, however, watch progress with a somewhat sceptical eye.

*A wheatear is a bird - not a cereal!