Vision 20:26. What future for our countryside?
May 13, 2008; 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm.
This event took place as planned. Read the report on the meeting »
We are holding an event in Bath for Avonside CPRE members on the evening of 13 May at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute in Queens Square. Further information, including how to book your tickets, will be provided shortly.
The focus is the recently published discussion document “Vision 20:26. What future for our countryside?” We will have a speaker from CPRE HQ, Paul Miner, and also Jim Claydon from The Royal Town Planning Institute who will probably be providing something of a counter view in some respects. We hope for a lively discussion and will be making sure that the views you put forward are reflected back to CPRE National Office. The aim at present is very much to foster debate rather than presenting definitive CPRE views, so this (as well as the blog on the website) will be your chance to have your say.
A Brief Summary
CPRE’s contribution to the debate includes identification of five key countryside issues that describe possible futures for people and places in 2026. To quote Shaun Spiers, Chief Executive of CPRE:
“We all have different views about the kind of landscape we want to pass on to the next generation. We are not predicting the future, but exploring how things might look in 2026.
“While we continue to defend countryside from inappropriate development we also want to come up with positive solutions. We want to show how necessary development can be accommodated without eating up too much countryside, and how the countryside’s value - as an amenity, in supplying food, in helping us mitigate and adapt to climate change - can be enhanced.
“We have set out one exciting possible vision. Be we can’t provide all the answers. We need a national debate that will, we hope, lead to a shared understanding of the sort of countryside we want to see and how to get it.”
The key issues identified are:
- Lifestyle and leisure: England’s countryside has blossomed into its Natural Health Service. Farm and country visits are part of the school curriculum and many more people, from a broad demography, are using and visiting the countryside.
- Life in our cities, towns and villages: Thanks to good planning, three quarters of new homes created will be contained within urban areas - but built on existing brownfield land. Some will be built on countryside. Smaller towns and villages will grow as a result of the revival in locally produced food and the interest in the countryside for leisure. This will also help to create more local jobs.
- Climate change and the countryside: Farmers have helped to reduce CO2 emissions by moving away from crops that require large amounts of synthetic, oil derived fertilisers. To adapt to the changing climate, new areas of coastal wetland will be created. Increased rainfall will be absorbed through better land management and technologies. Biodiverse and tranquil reservoirs will store enough water to take us through droughts.
- Food and farming: Farmers will earn part of their income from maintaining the countryside. They’ll also generate an income from countryside visits as people take more holidays there. The wildflowers, birds, insects and mammals that had so dwindled over the previous 70 years have returned in a rush of sights, sounds and smells. Farmers will play their part in supplying our energy needs diversifying into bio-energy crops, growing rapeseed oil and fast growing trees for wood burning.
- Planning: A new focus of the planning system will be on increased use of the ‘countryside next door’, within a few minutes walk of where people live. Development will be completed sensitively, retaining countryside character while encouraging access and recreation. We will have a greener Green Belt.
A copy of the discussion document can be found on the CPRE website.