Visiting the countryside
By 2026, a combination of climate change and increased transport costs will mean that more people visit Green Belt land.
There will be a substantial growth in rural holiday accommodation in villages and on farms where people come to walk, cycle, ride and angle.
People will also become much more environmentally aware, thanks mainly to the obvious and mounting damage being done across the globe by climate change.
They are more health conscious too and the growth in obesity has ended. England’s countryside has blossomed into its Natural Health Service.
Valuing the countryside
All these changes amount to a huge increase in engagement with the countryside, extending far beyond the middle classes and the well to do, embracing those on lower incomes and from ethnic minorities.
People feel a greater sense of ownership of the countryside, are willing to support its conservation as taxpayers and, for many, as volunteers. They see England’s countryside as part of their citizenship, rather than one more item of consumption.
Could this vision be a reality? Give us your views below.
What is the CPRE doing about the increasing use by 4×4 vehicles and motor bicycles of green roads? I am particularly concerned about this in the Lake District, where I rent a cottage on a green road. The National Parks Authorities now have powers to impose TROs stopping or restricting this noxious traffic but seem reluctant to use them.
(Note from CPRE: We are a member of the Green Lanes Protection Group, which has campaigned nationally against the inappropriate use of Green Lanes by motor vehicles. Through our local branches, CPRE continues to work to ensure that Traffic Regulation Orders are used where appropriate. If you would like more information about our work on Green Lanes in the Lake District, please contact our local branch, the Friends of the Lake District.)
OK, and where id the food to be grown?
How about the effect on rural life of all the people visiting the country? Emissions from the transport bringing them to the countryside.
We can’t think of the countryside purely in terms of food production. Humanity must learn stop treating natural resources as if they are there entirely for our benefit. We share this planet with countless other lifeforms which have as much right to thrive as we do and for this we need to stop assuming that we can keep putting more and more land under cultivation. The biosphere needs wilderness and semi-wilderness and if that means we have to radically change our ptterns of consumption and lifestyles, and work on achieving long term population reduction then so be it.
In the second draft,I see reference to an increased amount of,”walking,cycling and community rural transport”.
I reckon that unless we include more development and re-openings of closed railways,there’ll still be little room on rural roads for pedestrians,cyclists and equestrians.
Currently,as a member of the East Riding of Yorkshire/Kingston upon Hull local authorities’Local Access Forum,I’m endeavouring,with the East Riding Rural Transport Partnership,to find safe and pleasant ways and means for car-free people to gain access between local access areas,public rights of way,and others.
Please let’s not overlook railway development,as a means toward reducing the lack of peace, pleasure,and tranquillity on our country roads!