Rural Areas Of England Research Articles

Non-fatal occupational injuries in British agriculture

Objectives: To investigate the incidence, nature and determinants of non-fatal occupational injuries in British agriculture. Methods: As part of a postal survey, data on lifetime histories of work in agriculture...

Fiscal conservatism versus local paternalism: divergent experiences of public housing decline in rural areas of England during the 1980s

This paper examines the differential response of two rural districts of England (Fenland and Waveney) to changes in council house provisioning in the 1980s. It is situated in a decade when major policy shifts in social housing policy were occurring at the national level with local governments devising new social housing strategies in response. Against a fast moving legislative background, the study examines the extent to which Stoker's categorisation of policy-making behaviour helps us to understand the diversity of policy-making influences at work in rural areas. In displaying a resentment of outside influence and a vision grounded in local considerations that offered minimal support for housing association activity, both Fenland and Waveney both exhibited attributes of what Stoker (The Politics of Local Government, second ed., 1991, Macmillan, London) called a ‘traditionalist’, Conservative stance. However, contrasts in the social housing policy of each authority over the decade revealed the limitations of this categorisation. In Fenland, pressures for housing growth led to increasing problems for those on low-incomes. Nevertheless, the District's social housing policy was dominated by fiscal conservatism and a reluctance to maintain financial support for either construction or the maintenance of council housing. By contrast, the social housing policies adopted by Waveney were characterised by a paternalistic desire to maintain a higher level of support for council housing combined with a more overtly critical attitude of central government policy. By identifying different dimensions of ‘traditionalist’ Conservative behaviour, the paper underscores the need for further studies on the role played by local leadership and key actors in policy-making processes.

Young People and Social Exclusion in Rural Areas

The concept of social exclusion may be used to connect the experiences of individuals and social groups to broader social and economic processes (linking ‘biography’ to ‘history’). This paper draws on recent empirical studies of young people in rural areas of Britain and other European countries to illustrate how social exclusion may operate in rural areas, particularly in the transition from education to employment.

The effects of rent restructuring on social housing in English rural areas

This paper discusses the impact of central government's rent restructuring policy on social housing in rural areas in England. It examines the effect that restructuring will have on the rents set by social landlords in a set of case study areas then considers some of the likely impacts on affordability and on new investment in rural social housing. One of the primary aims of rent restructuring policy is to reduce unjustifiable differences between the rents of similar dwellings in the local authority and Registered Social Landlord sectors locally. This aim seems likely to be achieved. In doing so, it is likely that affordability will be reduced in the local authority sector but enhanced for tenants of some RSLs. However, the reduction in real RSL rents that improve affordability may further constrain RSLs’ ability to invest in new social housing in rural areas. The paper concludes that rent restructuring by itself will not materially improve the housing prospects of the less well off in rural areas.

Conceptualizing Social Exclusion in Rural Britain

Most studies of living conditions in rural areas have offered essentially static snapshots. Social exclusion is a multi-dimensional, dynamic concept which emphasizes the processes of change through which individuals or groups are excluded from the mainstream of society and their life-chances reduced. This article considers social exclusion in the context of the principal forces operating on and within rural areas of Britain, including global restructuring and the changing role of the State and supra-national institutions. A framework of four systems of social exclusion and inclusion is proposed, following Reimer (personal communication, 1998), according to the means by which resources and status are allocated in society. This is used to structure a presentation of the results of several recent empirical studies which provide evidence of the processes and system failures lying behind social exclusion in rural Britain. A number of research issues are identified concerning how these processes vary between areas, how they connect to the broader forces operating at macro and meso levels, and how local action is associated with attempts to resist social exclusion.

Social Exclusion and Poverty in Rural Areas of Britain

This paper discusses the ways in which economic, social and political forces for change operate in rural areas to produce social exclusion for some people and social groups. After a brief review of these forces for change, as they operate across Europe, the paper turns to consider the meaning of the term ”social exclusion” and how the experiences of individuals and social groups might be related to such forces. Following this, the paper draws on a number of recent empirical studies to illustrate how social exclusion operates in rural areas of Britain. The paper draws attention to the effects on sustainable livelihoods of the ascendancy of market processes, and the waning of state systems, as a result of the neo-liberal hegemony which has hastened deregulation, privatisation, reductions in public expenditure and global capital’s penetration of labour and product markets.

Progress with implementing local air-quality management in rural areas of England

Air quality in the UK, although vastly improved from the smogs of the 1950s, now faces a new set of challenges from a variety of sources and pollutants. Poor air quality has long been associated with urban areas, but it is becoming clear that many rural locations also have locations likely to exceed the UK Air Quality Strategy-objectives. This paper will examine the extent to which rural authorities have been engaged in the local air-quality management (LAQM) process, a new regime by which air quality control is being accomplished in the UK. Results are presented from a questionnaire survey of environmental health officers of 100 rural authorities undertaken in January 1999. The paper investigates both the technical aspects of the LAQM process as well as the management approaches. The current progress of rural authorities, and some of the problems they face, are discussed particularly in comparison with urban areas. It is concluded that some rural authorities with air pollution problems stemming either from within or outwith their borough, may face significant challenges from the LAQM review and assessment process, particularly where air pollution responsibilities have only relatively recently been addressed. Rural authorities seem to be embracing these new responsibilities enthusiastically, but it is almost inevitable that they will be trailing behind urban authorities who have several decades of experience and joint working to draw upon.

Interconnecting housing, homelessness and rurality: evidence from local authority homelessness officers in England and Wales

This paper investigates the discursive and practical policy issues relating to homelessness in rural areas of England and Wales. It begins with the argument that such homelessness does represent a significant but under-emphasised problem in rural areas. Official government counting of rural homelessness itself underestimates the scale of the problem, but provides a starting point for an understanding of more hidden forms of homelessness. We suggest a number of ways in which rural homelessness is less visible than its well-publicised urban counterpart, relating to the morphology of rural areas, social-cultural constructs of idyll-ic rural living, and conceptual assumptions which render homelessness as out-of-place in purified rural spaces. We then report on findings from a survey of local authority homelessness officers in England and Wales and in-depth interviews with officers in the counties of Somerset and Gloucestershire. Seeing the issues through the eyes of these practitioners clarifies a number of strands of the invisibility of rural homelessness, and points to very significant interconnections between ‘housing’ and ‘homelessness’ discourses in the local rural policy process.

Survey into health problems of elderly people: a comparison of self-report with proxy information.

This study was conducted as part of the Medical Research Council Cognitive Function and Ageing Study. To compare information given by elderly people on their past and current health and family history of illness with similar information obtained from a relative, friend or carer. Screening and assessment stages of a prevalence study. Three urban and two rural areas of England and Wales. A subsample weighted by age and cognitive status of random population samples of people >/=65 years, living in their own home or in a residential or nursing home, interviewed between 1991 and 1994. A relative, friend or carer identified by each elderly person to provide proxy information. INTERVIEW: Computerized schedules including items on demographic details, cognitive function, lifetime illnesses, current health problems and family history of illness. The rate of proxy 'don't know' responses and the agreement between the elderly person and their proxy were calculated for each item, both for the overall sample and for subgroups based on characteristics of the respondent and of the proxy and on the relationship between them. Higher 'don't know' rates were found to be particularly associated with more distant relationships, questions on family history, a shorter length of time known and a lack of co-residence. Agreement was strongly related to the nature of the question and less to co-residence, with other factors such as relationship having much smaller effects. Proxy information on past and current health problems can be almost complete and in good agreement with self-report, particularly where the proxy lives with the respondent. On family history of illness, history of head injury or boxing and current sleep problems, proxy information is likely to be less complete and show poor agreement. A proxy who is not a close relative is likely to give less complete information but agreement will not be substantially lower.

Survey into health problems of elderly people: multivariate analysis of concordance between self-report and proxy information.

In many cases probands are unable to give information about their own history. Our objective was to compare information given by elderly people on their past and current health and family history of illness with similar information given by a relative, friend or carer. In three urban and two rural areas of England and Wales a sub-sample, weighted by age and cognitive status, was drawn from random population samples of people aged >/=65, not permanently living in hospital, and interviewed between 1991 and 1994, plus for each of these a relative, friend or carer. The relation between the reports of probands and informants on cognitive function, lifetime illnesses, current health problems, and family history of illness was analysed using multiple regression of agreement, measured using Cohen's kappa, and logistic regression of bias and of proportion of 'not known' responses. Potential explanatory variables used were: centre, proband cognitive function, proband sex, informant sex, proband age, difference in age (generation), relationship, frequency of contact, period known, modality of informant interview. Overall agreement per interview measured by kappa between informant and proband was lower for older probands, probands who were cognitively impaired, and those who saw one another less often; each effect adjusted for all the others using multiple regression. Informants tended to over-report relative to probands if the proband was cognitively impaired, male, they themselves were female, of a younger generation, and co-resident; each effect adjusted for all the others using logistic regression. Interviews were more likely to be missing at least one item if the informant was not the spouse, had known the proband for less time, and was not co-resident; each effect adjusted for all the others using logistic regression. There is reasonable accord between probands and informants which is enhanced by close contact, long period of knowledge, and a female informant. Degree of kinship is not critical. Informant interviews may be conducted by telephone rather than face-to-face without serious loss of quality.

Employment Opportunities and Constraints Facing In-migrants to Rural Areas in England

Recent decades have witnessed an increase in population and employment in many rural areas in England. In-migration has been the key driving force behind population growth in rural England, and a cursory analysis of key statistics reveals rural areas to be in the vanguard of labour market developments. Using evidence from secondary data sources and material drawn from interviews with in-migrants to rural areas in the East Midlands, this article looks behind some of the headline statistics to explore the perceptions and reality of the labour market experience of individuals in in-migrant households in rural areas. It is shown that the range of employment opportunities in rural areas is limited, and unless willing and able to travel relatively long distances to work, many in-migrants to rural areas face employment constraints. Hence, white for many households a rural location may be deemed advantageous in ‘housing’ and ‘environmental’ terms, for some individual household members - particularly young people and women - such a location may be judged disadvantageous from a ‘labour market’ perspective.

Investigations of the British rural middle classes — Part 2: Fragmentation, identity, morality and contestation

This is the second of two papers concerned with understanding the causes and consequences of middle class presence in rural areas. This paper draws on the notion of an interpretative approach to class analysis as outlined in the first paper and, in particular, addresses the issues of power, difference and identity discussed, in a theoretical manner, in that paper. The focus of this paper is, however, more substantive in that it draws on research conducted in five rural areas of Britain as part of two research projects. The paper is structured into three parts. The first outlines the nature of the research projects and the forms of research conducted within them. The second part of the paper explores the issue of whether there are significant class differences within the middle class, and indeed within the service class. Attention is drawn to how the class classifications of John Goldthorpe and Erik Wright appear to cross-cut each other in ways which are suggestive of the presence of what may be termed a ‘service proletariat’. The significance of gender and other lines of social differentiation within the formation, as well as fractionalisation, of class relations is highlighted. The third part of the paper addresses the inter-relations between socio-economically established differences and those constructed through notions of culture and morality. It is argued that rural residents commonly evaluate people and places through notions of cultural competence and morality, as well as through constructions of socio-economic differences. The roles of both general and localised/ruralised constructions of cultural and moral differences are highlighted, as is the way that these constructions are used to contest, symbolically at least, the socio-economic construction of difference.

Rurality in England and Wales 1991: A Replication and Extension of the 1981 Rurality Index

This paper sets out to create rurality indexes for 222 non‐urban Local Authority Districts (LADs) in England and Wales 1991, replicating the earlier work of Cloke (1977) and Cloke and Edwards (1986) for 1971 and 1981 respectively. The same technique is employed to generate the rurality indices for 1991 as that used by those previous researchers. The results for 1991 are then compared to those for 1981, illustrating the robustness of the rurality index. Despite the robustness of the rurality index, it was felt that too much of the variation in rurality was left unexplained by the previous construction. Therefore, principal components analysis is used to identify two new dimensions of rurality: Structural Rurality and Demographic Rurality. The remainder of the paper investigates the ways in which these new, or additional, indices of rurality may prove useful to the further study of change in rural areas of England and Wales.

Why is mortality higher in poorer areas and in more northern areas of England and Wales?

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To identify and quantify the factors responsible for the differences in mortality between affluent and deprived areas, the north and the south, and urban and rural areas in...

A Place in the Country? The Housing Circumstances of Young People in Rural England

ABSTRACT The contemporary housing circumstances of the one-fifth of all young people in England between the ages of 16 and 24 who live in rural areas are examined. Although young people are often seen as a key group in wider debates, not least because they so clearly represent the maintenance of the continuity of local people, they are infrequently examined in the research literature. More typically the young are simply ‘tagged on’ to existing studies of rural housing, demonstrating perhaps the urban emphasis of both housing research and youth studies. A rural focus on housing and youth when it does occur tends to be on extreme housing need, whereas—as this paper demonstrates—the range of issues and consequences with respect to housing are much wider. Three questions are addressed. First, what are the current household and housing circumstances of young people in rural areas of England? Second, what preferences do young people living in rural areas have in relation to housing, and how do these interact with prevailing socioeconomic structures to produce expectations? Third, what ‘choices’ do young people make and what are their wider consequences? In summary, it is asked ‘Do young people still have a place in the country?’

Tourism, Recreational, and Amenity Values in Land Allocation: An Analysis of Institutional Arrangements in the Postproductivist Era

In this paper, we examine the influence of institutional arrangements on the implementation of local land-use allocations which incorporate tourism, recreational, and amenity (TRA) values, using a case study from British Columbia, Canada. We frame this paper within a conceptualization of postproductivism and pose the question to what extent, and under what conditions, are new local stakeholders, new local agencies, and new local processes effective in allocating land uses which reflect TRA values? Three new land-use proposals which incorporate TRA values are examined to determine where key catalysts for implementation lie. We found that, unlike other research in rural areas of Britain, institutions in British Columbia that have conventionally regulated land use continue to exercise their considerable regulatory and discretionary powers. Though new stakeholders, agencies and processes at the local level have had an impact on planning, they have not been effective in reconfiguring the power structures for actual implementation of land reallocation. This lack of efficacy is attributed in part to the common property character of lands that support TRA values, the associated complexity of property rights regimes, and the large number of stakeholders involved. Furthermore, there is a lack of understanding by regulatory agencies of land resources as community resources, and these agencies continue to grant higher priority to the strategic considerations of higher levels of government rather than to local concerns.

The Scottish Highlands as a Special Policy Area, 1886 to 1965

This paper has two objectives. The first is to explore the creation of a Highland policy area in the 1880s. Emphasis will be placed on the use of historical arguments by the government in the course of the construction of the Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act of 1886, especially in the attempt to justify confining the operation of that statute to the Highlands. The second theme, explored in the latter parts of the paper, concerns the strategies which succeeding governments have used to justify the perpetuation of a distinct Highland policy area. An element of continuity in Highland history in the twentieth century has been the special treatment of the area by governments. On the occasions when this has caused resentment in other rural areas of Britain, the Scottish Office response has been to argue that the Highlands are a special case because of the existence of the crofting counties with their special code of legislation. Clearly, this is a tautological argument and it is hoped that this paper, by exploring the period from the creation of the crofting legislation in the 1880s, to the late twentieth century, will shed some light on its origins. It will be argued that this has created a climate of fear in the Highlands and particularly the crofting community, but also, on occasion in the Lowlands. Further, there are occasions when the existence of a special Highland policy area has served to marginalise Highland policy. The paper falls into five main sections: the first will briefly review the literature about the Highland/Lowland division in Scotland, the second will look at the origins of the Crofters' Act of 1886, the third will examine the period from 1906 to 1911 when aspects of crofting legislation were extended to the rest of Scotland; the fourth section will identify the inter war period as an era when Highland policy became more diverse and the final section will scrutinise the impact of that more diverse approach in the years after the Second World War.

Migration trends in British rural areas from the 18th to the 20th centuries.

"Longitudinal residential histories are used to examine the extent to which three rural areas in Britain had distinctive migration histories from the 18th to the 20th centuries. Migration flows into and out of the regions are used to examine the extent to which the regions were integrated into the British migration system, and the relative importance of rural to urban migration is assessed.... Analysis reveals a high degree of short-distance mobility within regions and emphasises the dominance of London in longer-distance migration.... It is also suggested that the role of towns in the migration system has previously been overemphasised, with much migration taking place between small settlements and some movement from large cities to smaller towns and villages.... The analysis challenges some accepted notions about migration in the past, and contributes to the debate about the extent to which British regions became part of a national economic and social system from the 18th century."

‘Deprivation’ and ‘the rural’: An investigation into contradictory discourses

This paper investigates the issue of ‘rural deprivation’ using material collected for the Rural Lifestyles Project, conducted at Saint David's University College, Lampeter. The concept of ‘deprivation’ usually deployed within the literature in rural studies is problematic, and a number of criticisms are made about existing conceptualisations of the term. One of these criticisms is based on the finding that amongst respondents interviewed for the study of lifestyles in rural areas of England, a number were highly critical of the application of the term ‘deprivation’ to rural areas. This issue is explored through an investigation of the discourses of ‘the rural’, taken to mean a system of meanings that describe English rural areas. An examination of these discourses shows how ‘deprivation’ is denied, and this is investigated through a discussion of the representation of rural areas as problem-free and ‘idyllic’ in some way; through the portrayal of ‘deprivation’ as a fault of the individual; and through the construction of ‘deprivation’ as a feature of ‘the rural's’ ‘other’, i.e. the urban. The paper concludes with a call for the attitudes and beliefs of different groups of people living in rural areas to be taken account of in the production of research into lifestyles in rural areas.

Healthy eating for infants–mothers’attitudes

Mothers' perceptions of desirable nutritional practices in infant feeding were examined using a questionnaire consisting of open and closed questions. A total of 1004 mother-infant pairs were recruited from a mixture of urban and rural areas in England. The sample represented a cross-section of socioeconomic groups and educational backgrounds. Mothers' attitudes to healthy eating for infants revealed some misconceptions; 83% felt that a high fibre intake was important or very important and 87% that a low fat intake was important or very important, while 20% considered that plenty of calories was not important. Other health guidelines were appropriately applied and most mothers considered a wide variety of foods, plenty to drink and a low sugar and salt intake to be important. These beliefs were representative of the sample population, irrespective of the socioeconomic group, location, age and education of the mother.