Reimagining the Rural – Centre for Rural Economy event on 1 April 2014
Photo by Alastair Fyfe Photography ©2013
On Tuesday 1 April the Centre for Rural Economy held a panel debate on the topic Reimagining the rural: Are
we neglecting the rural contribution to national economic growth? at the Royal Institution of Chartered
Surveyors, 12 Great George Street, Parliament Square, SW1P 3AD.
The panel consisted of (from left):
Janice Banks – Chief Executive of Action with Communities in Rural England
Sara Eppel – Deputy Director of Rural Communities Policy in Defra
Elinor Goodman (chair) - Former Chair of the Affordable Rural Housing Commission and presenter on Radio 4’s
The Week in Westminster
Jeremy Phillipson – Reader in Rural Enterprise at Newcastle University
Professor Mark Shucksmith OBE – Director of the Newcastle Institute for Social Renewal
Anne McIntosh MP - Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee
The panel was encouraged to consider answers to the question posed in the debate’s title, as well as consider
how to maximise rural Britain’s economic potential. Coming just two weeks after Budget 2014, in the final 12
months of this Parliament, and against the backdrop of the flooding that ravaged many rural communities in
recent months, the debate was a timely opportunity to highlight the contribution the rural economy usually
makes to national growth.
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What is the rural economy?
Jeremy Phillipson, Reader in Rural Enterprise at Newcastle University, started the discussion by saying that the
idea persists that rural areas are “largely unproductive places, residential areas for retirees, dormitories for
commuters, or spaces for leisure”. The panel agreed that, at least outside Defra, understanding of the rural
economy is limited and that rural areas are persistently stereotyped and compared unfavourably to their urban
counterparts. Moreover, the panelists determined that even when rural areas are associated with business and
enterprise, it is with land-based pursuits like agriculture, forestry and tourism. However, as Janice Banks, Chief
Executive of Action with Communities in Rural England, pointed out, only 16% of the rural economy is in
agriculture, forestry and fishing.
The panel argued that the rural economy should be taken more seriously:
 It contributes over £211 billion pa, nearly 20% of English GVA, half a million enterprises and 3 million
employees;
 It could be worth an extra £347 billion pa if policy encouraged rural businesses (Commission for Rural
Communities);
 Although rural areas have 20% of the total population, they have 30% of the total number of businesses;
 Their characteristics offer scope for leading new approaches to economic development. For example,
self-employment, employment in micro-firms, and home-working are key features of rural economies.
 There is a higher relative share of manufacturing employment in rural areas.
 Rural areas are also at the forefront of a number of key socio-economic trends that should place them at
the cutting edge of innovative responses: for example they lead on demographic ageing; community
service provision; renewable energy; and ecosystem services.
Panelists were split on how well the rural economy had responded to the recession. Sara Eppel, Deputy Director
of Rural Communities Policy in Defra, claimed that the rural economy had sustained itself over the last five years
and was continuing to add jobs and produce growth. Jeremy Phillipson disagreed, as he felt that recovery was
slower than it could otherwise have been, but noted that measuring the health of the rural economy is difficult.
He called for the creation of a National Rural Business Survey, building on the success of the Northern Business
Survey established by the Centre for Rural Economy in 2009, to periodically take the pulse of the rural economy
and monitor for shocks. Janice Banks drew attention to the ‘rural poor’ who are less willing to take state handouts and so are missed in official deprivation statistics. She argued that they had nonetheless suffered during the
recession.
What are the barriers to growth?
Several of the panelists touched on what they feel is holding the rural economy back, including affordable
housing, transport infrastructure, communications infrastructure and access to finance.
Coming on the day of a damning Public Accounts Committee report into rural broadband roll-out, it is perhaps
unsurprising that broadband was given a lot of air time at the debate. As Chair of the Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs Select Committee, Anne McIntosh MP in particular felt that increasing rural broadband provision
was the single most pressing issue for the rural economy. Jeremy Phillipson agreed, saying: “Who would start a
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business nowadays without superfast broadband?” Sara Eppel pointed out that broadband provision is a £1.8
billion programme, so urged rural businesses not to “lose heart” before it’s finished. However, Professor Mark
Shucksmith, Director of the Newcastle Institute for Social Renewal, commented that even once ‘superfast
broadband’ has been delivered successfully, perhaps half the rural population of the UK will still have to accept
broadband at less than a tenth of the speed of the rest of the country (2 mbps vs 24 mbps).
Also discussed at length was planning. Panelists said that a confusing planning environment had led to a lack of
affordable housing in the countryside, effectively limiting the rural workforce. Harsh planning regulations were
also said to be one of the reasons that ‘kitchen table start-ups’ were still struggling to grow, as businesses found
it difficult to access office space. Professor Mark Shucksmith said that the root of the problem was a difference
between perception and reality for development. He cited research which showed that the public estimates that
between 50-75% of the country is already developed, but in fact this figure is only 9%. He said there is still room
to expand without a “laissez-faire” approach to planning.
Janice Banks agreed, and also championed the role of community decision making, saying that often
communities are not opposed to growth and development, but that they wanted to be part of the decisionmaking process and pursue a collective vision for their community in order to protect valuable local services.
Sara Eppel mentioned Government initiatives addressing these issues, like Local Enterprise Partnerships, who
are able to identify where to place office space and facilities in a “hub and spoke” model; and Local Plans, which
offered a way for communities to become involved in the drafting of planning policies in their area.
What are the policy solutions?
Many on the panel agreed that policy still seems to be urban-blinkered, and that even where the rural economy
is discussed, policymakers tend to focus on land-based pursuits to the exclusion of other industries. The
panelists had varied suggestions on how to overcome some of the problems holding back the rural economy.
Anne McIntosh called for the rural affairs unit to receive more resources in future. She also wanted funding for
businesses to be easier to access, particularly for agri-tech grants, to reduce rural businesses’ dependence on
bank landing.
Professor Mark Shucksmith called for policymakers to build on the ‘networked rural development’ model
developed at the Centre for Rural Economy, in which local actors are enabled to steer larger top-down
developmental processes to their community’s benefit. However, he cautioned that this needed to be
complemented by systematic capacity-building of those areas less able to drive these processes. He argued that
without this capacity-building, simple devolution risked creating a “two-speed countryside” and reinforcing
persistent patterns of structural differentiation, such as the north-south divide in England.
Jeremy Phillipson wanted to create a Charter for Rural Enterprise that would unite research institutions,
economic agencies, policy and business communities with the aim of promoting the rural economy. He
proposed that this would ensure more effective and transparent proofing of growth plans across all business
sectors and localities and the tailoring of measures to rural conditions. He also felt it would also encourage
better engagement between stakeholders in the rural economy, strengthening evidence and understanding of,
and commitment to, rural business potential, and assisting in the rural economy’s recovery to full health more
effectively.
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Questions and answers
The debate then opened to questions and comments from the floor. Among the contributions were comments
about how Defra should drive agri-tech development by Dr Paul Wilson from the University of Nottingham; the
need for rural policy to champion the cause of sustainability and innovate against climate change by Professor
Janet Dwyer of the University of Gloucestershire; and statements welcoming some of the measures announced
in the Budget, including increases to the annual investment allowance by Anand Dossa from the National
Farmers Union.
One of the more popular topics of debate was planning. Danielle Troop from the Country Land and Business
Association said that the rural economy has two speeds that are dependent on the mindset of the local
authority – some are open to development, but some take every planning application to appeal, cause delays
and prevent access to funding. Contributors then shared anecdotes about ridiculous reasons why planning
applications had been dismissed, from the positioning of bus stops to the availability of breakfast cereal in the
local shop.
The future for the Centre for Rural Economy
The evening ended with concluding remarks from Professor Steve Homans, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty
of Science, Agriculture and Engineering at Newcastle University, who briefly introduced the Centre for Rural
Economy’s work.
He explained that over the last two decades, the Centre has been a “provocateur on rural issues” and has led the
way in changing the image of the ‘rural’ away from something that has not moved with the times into that which
has its own rich sources of dynamism beyond agricultural development. He said that with the demise of support
bodies like the Regional Development Agencies, Countryside Agency and Commission for Rural Communities,
the Centre is the country’s most important research organisation responding to the needs of rural communities
and businesses. Work under this theme complements a wider commitment within Newcastle University to
academic excellence with a purpose and the mission of being a world-class civic university.
Looking to the next two decades and beyond, Professor Homans said that the Centre has aspirations to become
a truly National Centre for the Rural Economy, for instance expanding its flagship Northern Rural Network to
become a National Rural Network and widening the Northern Business Survey to become the National Rural
Business Survey, while continuing world-leading research to shape the future of rural communities everywhere.
In November 2013 the Centre launched a fundraising campaign with a target of £2.5 million to help towards this
goal.
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