Natural England

The East Midlands is a large and diverse region with a population of nearly 4.2 million people.   It is one of England’s more rural regions covering 12% of England’s land area, but with only 8.5% of the country’s population.    The rural East Midlands has the potential for a prosperous and sustainable future.   However there are growing pressures which threaten to exclude large sections of the population from a share in this success.   These will need to be addressed if the prospects for the region as a whole are not to be undermined. 

The influx of commuters in the south and west of the region is making well-paid, mobile professionals increasingly influential in rural life.   Furthermore the region’s countryside has a vibrant economy of its own, which in many respects outperforms the region’s towns and cities.   Thanks to higher levels of skills and IT literacy, the economic outlook for the rural East Midlands is promising.

But this is not the whole story.   For the less well-off in the countryside, housing choice is narrowing sharply – especially in Northamptonshire, around Derby, Leicester and Nottingham and in the Lincolnshire Wolds.   An aging population is relying increasingly on weak social infrastructure, with rural Lincolnshire particularly vulnerable.   The car is supplanting public transport, but adding to the high risk of accidents facing rural road users.

And despite its rurality, the East Midlands has a significantly degraded environment, which needs careful rehabilitation and management to bring it up to the national standard in terms of biodiversity.   The region’s already scarce natural assets are under growing stress, from development pressures emanating from the south-east and from intensive agriculture.