Natural England

NOT SEEN, NOT HEARD ? Social exclusion in rural areas - 15 June 2000

Commenting on the experiences of individual cases in a Countryside Agency report out today (15 June), Ewen Cameron, chairman of the Agency said: "Some people in rural areas face disadvantage as acute as those in urban areas - low income, lack of a secure home, difficulties reaching health care and services, social isolation and powerlessness. The difference is they are often hidden, obscured in the wider community alongside people in very different circumstances. This is not an urban/rural competition - it's about people wherever they live. Their voices must not go unheard because policies and funding are aimed at the more visible problems in many urban areas."

Speaking at the Countryside Agency's conference on social exclusion in rural areas Not seen, not 
heard ?, he said: "Rural problems need rural solutions. The recent consultation on a national strategy for neighbourhood renewal contains some very exciting ideas, many of which could work in rural areas too, but the report does not recognise the need to tackle social exclusion in rural areas. The review of its Social Exclusion Unit provides an opportune moment for government to act."

Mr Cameron called for:

a rural strand in the future work of the Government's Social Exclusion Unit 
a rural dimension in all future social exclusion activity 
indicators sensitive to rural circumstances - for example, the index of multiple deprivation should give greater prominence to rural problems 
investment in building community capacity in rural areas 
adoption of access standards to key services

Mr Cameron said: "But it's not just the responsibility of national government. All of us - public, private and voluntary - need to act. The Countryside Agency has a special programme to raise awareness and demonstrate ways of tackling social exclusion in the countryside**. Our other work to improve access to services, affordable housing and jobs in rural areas will also help contribute to improving social inclusion."

Case studies highlighted at today's conference include:

"It's so laid back it's difficult to get anywhere here. Because it's such a rural area it doesn't work that fast. It's so hard to get a job down here, so hard to get a place............... Life was great until I hit 12........" David, 18, jobless and homeless, Liskeard

"The bottom dropped out of our world" when Bob Kennedy, a former farmworker in his 40s, lost his job in the Lincolnshire Fens nine years ago due to ill health.

"You could be totally alone - living alone in commuter belt country, " Liz Palmer, a nurse in her late 40s, West Oxfordshire, who will be homeless in the New Year.

"We live from day to day hoping the tractor won't break down... When we got this farm, it was a dream come true - but it's a nightmare now." The Browns, in their early fifties, farming in the Peak District, earn less than a quarter of the minimum wage. 

"Now we've got nowt..... what concerns me, and what worries the older people, is what's left for the younger people here," says Pat. "Maybe they'll keep this one (Groverake mine) open as a tourist attraction. Everything now is catering for the tourist industry. The trouble is it's only good for summer jobs," Ruby,. Rookhope, Co Durham.