Rural Regeneration in the UK

Simon Pemberton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781317439745
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

Rural Regeneration in the UK provides an accessible yet critical overview of rural regeneration policy and governance in the UK. It charts the key patterns and processes of rural change since 1945 and the emergence and evolution of rural regeneration policy and governance in shaping rural spaces. A key objective of the book is to highlight how, and to what extent, rural regeneration policy and governance are responsive to an increasingly differentiated and uneven rural economy and society.

Part One considers the context for rural regeneration, including theoretical frameworks of relevance and the ways in which rural regeneration policy and governance have been framed. In particular, it includes a consideration of how the rural has been made 'thinkable', and the extent to which this has moved beyond traditional concerns with agricultural development. Part Two highlights the key dimensions and spaces of rural regeneration. This includes responses to rural change from 'within the rural', including community-led approaches, the use of culture and the extent to which approaches may be converging or diverging within a devolved UK.

Rural Regeneration in the UK provides a comprehensive and integrated analysis of responses to rural change that will appeal to a broad audience of students, scholars and practitioners both in the UK and abroad.

PART I

Framing Rural Regeneration and Governance

1

INTRODUCTION

The Context for Rural Regeneration

Chapter Aims

This chapter initially outlines the structure of this textbook and the importance of rural regeneration within the context of United Kingdom (UK). It identifies how rural regeneration is an important field of study in its own right, yet has often been neglected with reference to the majority of work that has focused on urban regeneration to date. In addition, it defines the nature of rural regeneration – as opposed to rural development – and sets the context for framing rural regeneration in relation to ongoing processes of rural change.

Introduction and Organisation of the Textbook

Regeneration is often conceived as the preserve of urban areas, with a strong focus on physical regeneration of city centres, docks and former hubs of heavy industry. However, it is just as important in rural areas, and needs to encompass physical, social, economic and environmental issues to be successful.

(The Guardian, 4 February 2013)

The above quote is from “Not Just for Urbanistas: Regeneration Is Alive and Kicking in Rural Towns” in The Guardian Newspaper during the period in which this textbook was being prepared. It provides a very useful starting point for the book as it immediately draws attention to the explicit focus of much of the regeneration literature – in the UK and beyond – on urban areas. Indeed, regeneration has often been perceived as the preserve of the urban and perhaps unsurprisingly given processes of urban economic decline and urban social polarisation that have been charted for many UK cities (Tallon, 2010).

However, to view regeneration as a solely urban process is misleading. Rural areas have also experienced considerable economic and social restructuring, which has led to a requirement for rural regeneration. A key objective of this textbook is to consider the provenance and nature of rural regeneration in the UK and to situate such approaches within the wider economic, social and political context.

Given processes of economic and social restructuring, it is also inevitable that the nature of policy initiatives concerned with responding to the needs of rural areas has changed over time, with emphases varying between ‘top-down’ government-led interventions and ‘bottom-up’ locally-led initiatives. The textbook therefore considers the nature of such interventions and their emergence in the transition of some rural areas from being traditional places of agricultural production to places increasingly dominated by consumption-based activities. However, the book will note how such a shift has not been clear-cut and this in itself has implications for the effectiveness of rural regeneration policy in an increasingly “differentiated countryside” (Marsden, Murdoch, Lowe, Munton and Flynn, 1993).

Each chapter covers a different aspect of rural regeneration. This chapter provides a discussion of the early beginnings of rural regeneration policy and how rural regeneration can be defined and framed in theoretical terms. A consideration is also made of how it is similar or different to urban regeneration, as well as the changing context within which it has emerged. The implications for our understanding of the structures and scales of rural regeneration policy and governance – and an increasingly uneven and differentiated rural regeneration approach – are also discussed.

Chapters 2 and 3 subsequently explore the specific policy and governance frameworks for rural regeneration. Key ‘objects’ of governance are considered and the extent to which these may have changed both spatially and temporally. In particular, Chapter 2 highlights the post-1945 emphasis in the UK on the development of agricultural and rural industries and how during this so-called ‘productivist’ phase there was a strong ‘top-down’ emphasis on a production-oriented rural economy. Subsequently, this approach was replaced through the 1980s with an emphasis on neo-liberal, entrepreneurial / commodified, market-driven (and often multi-functional) approaches (Woods, 2011).

Moreover, much of the discussion in Chapters 2 and 3 is focused on England, as it provides a particularly good example of the pressures and changes that different types of rural areas have faced, the nature of policy and governance responses, and the effectiveness of such arrangements. Nevertheless, the governance approach set out in Chapter 3 takes a slightly different approach to the norm. Rather than considering governance change in isolation, it links to the previous chapter by exploring the ways in which the institutions and actors responsible for the governance of rural regeneration may be strategically and spatially privileged above others – and how this can subsequently impact on the nature of rural regeneration policy / strategy. Indeed, by adopting a scalar perspective the chapter illustrates how the scaling of rural regeneration can be linked to the activities of governments that seek to privilege some interests over others, but also how the ‘crafting’ of scale itself is shaped by interests both within and beyond government (Jessop, 1997). The chapter therefore focuses on the transformation in rural regeneration governance over the last 20 years, including the rise of rural partnership working as a new mode of rural governance (Edwards, Goodwin, Pemberton and Woods, 2001), the respective engagement of rural communities therein and issues of exclusion and / or empowerment (Ray, 2006).

Part Two of the textbook moves on to highlight the key dimensions and spaces of rural regeneration. Given the increased importance of governing through communities, collective action and an emphasis on community-led active citizenship in rural regeneration policy (Gardener, 2008), Chapter 4 explores the problems and opportunities of (neo-)endogenous or bottom-up rural development. Chapter 5 then considers the cultural aspects of rural regeneration and how in many places there has been a shift from rural protectionism and urban containment to developing a consumption-based “new marketplace countryside” (Woods, 2011). But it also highlights how rural areas often have very different abilities to capitalize on such assets.

In the UK, considerable debate has taken place over the ways in which devolution has created opportunities for each of the devolved nations to create territorially specific governance and policy arrangements. Within this context, Chapter 6 examines how rural regeneration policy and governance have evolved in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales; the objects of governance privileged; and the role of the EU, which has arguably led to opportunities for the self-determination of rural regeneration policy remaining fairly limited.

Finally, the concluding chapter (Chapter 7) highlights how there has been a paradigmatic shift in both the process and delivery of regeneration within the UK and beyond. In essence, the era of the state underwriting regeneration activity – certainly in the context of the UK – has passed and there is now an increasing concern with decentralising responsibility and activity to a wider range of stakeholders. But in turn, the chapter notes how this raises new and important questions over the institutions, actors, strategies and scales that may be privileged and the influence of the state and other political interests therein. In this respect, there has arguably an increasing prioritisation of the urban, while rural–urban interdependencies are not yet being explored sufficiently.

Defining Rural Regeneration

Looking back to Furbey’s (1999) discussion on the metaphor of regeneration, two particular points arise that are of relevance to this introductory chapter. First, he notes how ‘regeneration’ in Latin means ‘rebirth’ and associated Judeo-Christian concerns with ‘being born again’ (Furbey, 1999). Indeed, for Jones and Evans (2008), they note how such a notion was very appealing during the 1980s when urban policy under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was informed by a neo-liberal, market-based approach focused on individuals rather than communities. In turn, they argue that “regeneration – as opposed to mere ‘redevelopment’ – became a moral crusade, rescuing not only the economy but the soul of the nation” (Jones and Evans 2008, p.2).

This distinction between regeneration and redevelopment is crucial in the context of rural areas. While considerable attention has focused on rural and regional development – albeit with each often having different objectives and operating at different scales (see Woods, 2005) – there has been much less focus on rural regeneration per se. However, finding an explicit definition of how rural regeneration may differ from rural development is problematic. Of the studies – both academic and policy-related – that consider rural regeneration, hardly any offer a definition. For example, Osborne, Williamson and Beattie (2004) attempt to delineate how rural regeneration may be different from urban regeneration (see below). But in terms of a definition, they offer only a broader conception of regeneration “denoting programmes and policies intent to lead to the social, economic and/or community development or rejuvenation of a local area – and particularly where this area has recently suffered significant decline or depopulation” (Osborne et al., 2004, p.158).

The most useful distinction between rural development and rural regeneration is made by Woods (2005). He notes how “development suggests a process of progressive change or modernisation … thus the provision of electricity to rural parts of the United States, for example, was clearly a rural development project” (Woods, 2005, p.146). In a similar vein, Moseley (2003, p.5) highlights how rural development “generally refers to the process of improving the quality of life and economic well-being of people living in relatively isolated and sparsely populated areas”.

‘Regeneration’, on the other hand, “suggests a more cyclical process – that there has been a buoyant economy that has fallen into decline and requires remedial action to return it to its previous condition” (Woods, 2005, p.146). Hence rural regeneration can be seen as an initiative for reversing rural decline. Moreover, he argues that programmes focused on addressing the decline of small rural market towns or replacing jobs lost in agriculture may be described as strategies for rural regeneration.

A further important point that Woods (2005) makes – which is focused upon in both Chapters 2 and 4 – relates to a difference between traditional ‘top-down’ (or exogenous) rural development and ‘bottom-up’ (or endogenous) rural regeneration. With regard to the former, a key challenge was to overcome rural differences through state-led major infrastructure projects. A ‘growth pole’ approach was often adopted for the economic development of regions and rural areas were seen as distant technically, economically and culturally from the main (urban) centres of activity (Moseley, 2003).

However, such approaches were deemed to be ineffective at securing rural development and hence there was a paradigm shift in rural policy to alternative ‘bottom up’ models characterized by community-led initiatives, and often drawing on local resources to capitalize on differences (p.146). As such, the emergence of rural regeneration has been concerned with bottom-up approaches, although a relational and networked approach that considers the importance and interaction of local (and beyond local) influences is now the accepted norm, which has been reflected in recent rural regeneration initiatives.

Indeed, returning to Furbey’s (1999) work, the second key point that emerges relates to the provenance of rural regeneration and how it may be distinctive in comparison to urban regeneration. The next chapter sets out in detail how rural regeneration policy has emerged and evolved in the UK. But in simple terms, rural regeneration has a long gestation and was first referred to in the late 19th century following attempts to modernize the structure of local government and to address the problems of both urban and rural areas. Nevertheless, both in the UK, across Europe and in the United States, governments have employed a number of differing strategies to regenerate declining rural areas (Gkartzios and Norris, 2011). A ‘productivist’ approach focused on supporting the agricultural sector generally predominated in the post-war period in the UK. However, with the decline in the relative importance – at least in economic terms – of agriculture in the UK since the early 1990s, a ‘post-productivist’ approach to the countryside focused around diversification, agri-tourism, environmental conservation and improving the quality of life in rural areas has emerged (Murdoch, Lowe, Ward and Marsden, 2003). This broader approach to rural policy intervention in the context of an increasingly connected and networked ‘global countryside’ (Woods, 2007) – as we shall see – has been highly variegated, both spatially and temporally, and has resulted in significant changes in the nature of power relationships and the nature of rural regeneration that has been undertaken.

How Might Rural Regeneration Be Different?

The work of Osborne et al. (2004) and others can be drawn upon to usefully highlight five key features that differentiate rural regeneration from urban regeneration. These relate to ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• PART I: Framing Rural Regeneration and Governance
• PART II: Key Dimensions and Spaces of Rural Regeneration
• Index