Rural life
We live in a society divided by a range of different issues.
Whether it is Rich V Poor, Black V White or Muslim V Jew, both Government and opposition have set up community cohesion committees, Neighbourhood Renewal Units, Urban Regeneration groups etc. But the one division for which there has been little help is the growing divide between Urban life and Rural life.
Yes, there have been Rural task forces, and rural reports, and there is even a Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. But the very fact a department for rural affairs has to exist merely serves to reinforce the impression that rural life is forgotten in the affairs of Westminster.
As more and more people work and live in the sprawling urban conurbations of our cities and towns we need to see Government work harder to bring about a new understanding that what it does it does in the name of all its citizens, and that in the day-to-day running of Government, rural affairs will not play second fiddle to urban life. There are a great many constituencies, up and down the country, that spread across both urban and rural areas and we need to see them returning members to Parliament who can bring their practical experiences of what works to the heart of Government. They need to return Conservative MP's whose voice will be heard and not Lib Dems who voices are drowned by their lack of influence.
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"But the one division for which there has been little help is the growing divide between Urban life and Rural life."
I do not know in what sense you mean this divide to be, but speaking on behalf of the rural population this suits many just fine! Why should we be presurised into being being more urban when we like our rural life very much. It is horrible when councils begin their "improvement schemes" in rural villages building masive estates of social and normal housing. Many small villages in Somerset are hardly recognisable as villages anymore and are fast becoming sprawling towns. True villages are becoming very rare.
Small villages have a nice sense of community, and suit those that don't like the hussle and bussle of towns, we enjoy the peace and quiet and love our natural suroundings, we want them to stay just that natural! Why must councils insist on grabbing every spare bit of farmland and covering it up in concrete. Every minority seems to have rights but what about the rights of rural people who don't want to live in a built up place? Who enjoy living in small communities and want to live along side the natural world. This right or choice, is slowly but surely being taken away as villages become larger and larger and farmland is sold off to developers. We already know that the government plans to build a large proportion of the three million houses needed on Green belt land. I am so worried about this as I dread to think what the impact of this will be on rural places. I hope that if this really needs to be done they concentrate this building on brownfield sites within towns or on the grean belt areas on the outskirts of existing towns rather than masacre our villages and wildlife anymore then they already have.
I entirely agree with all that you have said.
I think my concern is that too often the views of the rural community are ignored in Government and this breeds a sense of resentment in the country. The Housing example is a very good one. The current Government has set a target to build another town the size of Yeovil in South Somerset, to meet their government targets. Fortunately the current recession has probably knocked that on the head. But the point is we all want our children to grow up and be able to be housed but citizens want to feel they are part of how that is planned and not lectured and told like naughty children, that you get what you are given, where the Government wants to put it.
The simple fact is that I believe the days of Government directing the citizen to do what the Government wants have got to end - people resent that way of doing things. If Government wants to do things it has to learn to bring people with them and work hard to convince them that it is the right thing to do. The recent example fo Gordon Brown doing little to help the British people understand why we are fighting in Afghanistan is another good one.