Recreational Land Management

C.W.N. Miles, Professor C W N Miles, W. Seabrooke

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781136736322
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

The aim of this book is to construct a framework of understanding for those coming to the field of recreational land management from a non-land management discipline.

An introduction to recreational land use

1

1.1 DEFINITION AND EVOLUTION

The purpose of this book is to discuss the development and management of land for recreation. It is only coincidentally concerned with the extent to which a recreational use may be more appropriate or less appropriate than a non-recreational use. The term ‘recreational land use’ is a generic description denoting specific activities and pursuits, which may range from informal recreation in the countryside to more formalized leisure pursuits in an urban setting such as a sports complex, cinema or gambling casino. Recreation does not fit comfortably with some of the conventional criteria used to stereotype land uses. Distinctions between rural and urban land uses may be blurred – recreational enterprises embrace developments of an urban nature in a rural setting and green open-space within an urban setting. There is wide variation in the life cycle of recreation enterprises: obsolescence may quickly render some worthless while others may endure for generations. The full spectrum of activities which may fall within the category of recreation is very broad. Consequently, a correspondingly wide variety of opportunities, expectations, constraints and pitfalls must be appreciated by the manager of land to be used for recreation.

Recreation is sometimes claimed to be an essential component of life; the philosopher John Locke claimed it to be a civil right. If that is so, it comes well down the ranking of the necessities of life, after the physiological requirements of human existence have been met. This hierarchy of needs was recognized by Adam Smith and, more recently, by Maslow (1943), who postulated that human needs follow an orderly pattern in which the foremost is nourishment followed by shelter and security. Until the basic needs are met there is little concern for recreation. Once they are met, however, the need for love, self esteem and self fulfilment emerge and leisure and recreation become important components of life.

The long-term commitment of land and buildings to accommodate leisure and recreational facilities is largely a phenomenon of post-industrial society. In a newly industrialized Victorian Britain, long working hours left little time for relaxation. Outings on rest-days were hampered by lack of transport, consequently entertainment was sought largely within the confines of the urban areas. Music-halls and, subsequently, picture-houses flourished and other forms of group entertainment – spectator sports in particular – rapidly gained popularity. The separation of participation from entertainment became quite marked as recreational provision responded to popular demand. Nevertheless, social provision became motivated by public welfare considerations. The Factories Act paved the way towards improving the lot of the work force. Paid leisure time in the form of annual holidays meant that holidays away from home no longer remained the prerogative of the wealthy. Even so, the tradition of ‘wakes’ or ‘feast’ weeks in many industrial areas encouraged and maintained the emphasis on group recreation. As the road and rail networks expanded and new forms of personal transport such as the bicycle became more widely available, recreational opportunities outside the towns became more accessible. Although participation in recreational activities is far from new, the social changes of the twentieth century have had marked effects on participation in leisure and recreation.

The terms ‘leisure’ and ‘recreation’ are often considered synonymous. The former, however, is a more embracing term which includes self-imposed inactivity whereas the latter presupposes some activity designed to enhance self-expression and self-esteem. The greatest proportion of discretionary time available for leisure and recreational pursuits now appears to be spent inside the home rather than outside. In the case of home-based recreation, the need for special facilities in the form of land and buildings is negligible although the need for other hardware may be considerable. Nevertheless, it remains almost axiomatic that other popular forms of recreation do not occur in the home; a pint of beer or glass of wine consumed at home is less overtly recreational than the same thing consumed in the surroundings of a pub or wine bar, as part of a social gathering. The social and physical setting is of central importance to participation in leisure and recreation outside the home. This introduces the need for special facilities to accommodate the setting which accompanies the participation.

The nature of urban development in Britain, even now, is such that the change from densely populated, intensively developed areas to more sparsely populated countryside, largely unencumbered by buildings, often occurs over quite short distances. Though most of the population still remains dependent on towns for work and shelter, former dependence has become substantially eroded in the case of leisure and recreation. Most of us can reach different surroundings relatively easily and a choice of recreational opportunities is available to large numbers of people.

Affluence, mobility and free time stimulate demands for greater access to the countryside which some consider to be part of their birthright. However, the countryside in question may be owned or occupied by someone unwilling to grant such access. During the early part of this century increased access to the countryside was actively resisted by many private landowners, who saw this movement as a threat to their own rights and powers: the Battle of Kinder Scout in the Peak District in 1886 was one example of this conflict. Little happened to disturb the status quo (based on private land ownership) until well into the present century. As part of the welfare movement which pushed for the introduction of improvements in social and working conditions and the imposition of control on urban development, concern was also expressed over preserving and safeguarding the countryside from the erosion caused by urban expansion and making those parts of the countryside not given over to farming, forestry, mineral extraction, water storage, military and other uses, available for public enjoyment.

The Law of Property Act, 1925 granted access to common land for air and exercise but did not address the matter of privately owner land. In 1942 the Scott Report (Ministry of Works and Planning, 1942; see also Cherry, 1975) made extensive comment on the future use of rural land for agriculture and recreation. This gave support to the notion that areas of outstanding countryside should be protected on behalf of the nation under the designation of National Parks. However, little more happened in this respect until 1949; even the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, which laid the foundation for modern town planning, omitted all but superficial reference to the countryside, squandering an important opportunity to consider the interdependence of town and country. The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, 1949 may be considered the first outright statement of interest by the government in the importance of safeguarding, at least part of the countryside of England and Wales. However, it lacked the political power of its 1947 forerunner and gave inadequate attention to how its policies could be effectively implemented or to how its effectiveness could be measured. The lack of autonomy of all but one of the National Park Authorities which were subsequently established is anomalous. Despite the national importance of these parks, after the designation of the first National Park the controlling influence over their administration was ceded to the local authorities, whose role is, ultimately, to act in the best local interest.

The spirit of the 1949 Act was reinforced by the Countryside Act, 1968. This established further guidelines for designating and protecting additional areas of countryside because of their ‘outstanding natural beauty’ or because they accommodated Sites of Special Scientific Interest. It also provided for the establishment of the Countryside Commission for England and Wales (the Countryside Commission for Scotland was established under a separate Act). Both Commissions were given powers to advise, experiment and counsel in matters of recreation and in protection of the countryside.

However, all this legislation contains an unresolved paradox which leads to a land use dilemma revolving around the distinction between recreation (implying public participation and enjoyment) and preservation or conservation (implying land use control even to the exclusion of recreation) and the extent to which the two are mutually exclusive. Official designations of outstandingly valuable countryside act as a powerful magnet to casual visitors as well as to those actively seeking the qualities which gave rise to the designation, thus subjecting the areas in question to greater pressure than they might otherwise attract. More recent legislation, the Wildlife and Countryside Act, 1981, perpetuates this dilemma.

The demands on the land and natural resources of the industrialized nations appear to have increased more during the twentieth century than over any other equivalent period. In predominantly urban society land is called upon not only to supply food and raw materials but also to accommodate the industrial, commercial and service uses upon which its economic development and the welfare of its citizens is based. Such development involves a conversion of land from its virgin state to a modified state better suited to a more appropriate economic use. The greater the modification, the more remote the original nature of the land becomes and the more difficult (and more expensive) it is to restore the original use. This process of land use development becomes determined not by natural factors but by the impact of physical, social or economic obsolescence. The conversion of countryside to urban uses is a particularly critical threshold in this respect, though even within the context of ‘countryside’, extensive modification to long established, essentially stable ecosystems can and still does occur with increasing frequency.

Somewhat paradoxically, the country-dweller has become increasingly dependent on the town for the provision of goods, services and entertainment while the town-dweller turns increasingly to the countryside for informal recreation, to experience the historical heritage left by the landed aristocracy of a bygone age and as a natural setting for holidays and pastimes. Recreation in the countryside does create special problems, not least of which is a reticence among some country-folk to welcome, willingly, their urban counterparts. While towns’-people increasingly demand, often with justification, greater access to the countryside some insensitively insist that access be accompanied by urban paraphernalia out of keeping with the rural environment.

If the need for recreation is justifiable, the next question is ‘can a suitable site be made available both physically and economically?’; followed by ‘to what extent will the “raw” site have to be modified to enable it to meet the precise need in the most economic way?’. These questions raise further issues, for example:

• can demand be properly measured?

• can it be accurately expressed in land use terms?

• who owns or controls the site?

• do conflicting legal interests or obligations exist over it?

• what are the probable development costs?

• can these be defrayed by grants or subsidies?

• how much will it cost to operate the site?

• how should the performance of the enterprise be monitored to ensure an appropriate return for the land?

Private landowners have for centuries had a well developed interest in the recreational use of their estates. More recently, as both central and local government became active landowners and as their powers over the control and implementation of land use policies extended, each has taken a more positive interest in the provision of recreation for the general public. Even more recently leisure and tourism have become economically ‘respectable’ spheres of operation for commercial developers in the sense that it is no longer uncommon to find such development schemes being funded by financial institutions.

Without a full appreciation of the competing and complementary demands for the use of land, a land manager is in a poor position to make a rational decision about appropriate uses and their implementation. Recreation is but one among many possible uses. The varied demands of recreation seekers introduce increased and possibly conflicting demands, competing for space with farming and forestry. The management of these production orientated enterprises is concentrated on increasing efficiency of production. Management has become less intuitive, objectives have become more explicit to the extent that primary objectives are often adhered to with a single-mindedness which precludes subordinate or tangential objectives. Indeed, farmers and foresters have been criticized for overlooking the public's expectation that they have a long term responsibility of stewardship toward the countryside; but attitudes are changing. There is some evidence that public pressure has caused something of an alteration in some farming practices, for example, the restoration of public rights of way after ploughing. More particularly, economic pressure on the farming industry itself has resulted in a need for farmers to examine their costs carefully and in many cases to alter or reduce their inputs. Further economic pressure may result in a reduction in the total area of land used for agricultural production, indeed, public sector funding has been targeted at the withdrawal of land from agricultural use and the stimulation of provision of non-agricultural services in the rural economy. The appearance and use of certain areas of land may alter dramatically over the next decade.

1.2 RECREATIONAL PROVISION FOR PUBLIC USE

The use of land and facilities for recreational purposes by the general public has already been referred to on several occasions. It may be as well, therefore, to distinguish between ‘public’ and ‘private’ use. Public use presupposes that the public at large has the opportunity to gain access to and use the facilities in question. Ostensible discrimination exists only in so far as a cost is involved which some can afford and others cannot.

Although in this sense public use exists irrespective of the status (namely public or private) of the landowner, it is often assumed that, for some reason ‘public’ facilities must be publicly owned as well as being available for the use of the general public. Where the public sector controls the utilization of a site it does so either through the ownership of a legal interest in the land or possibly by some management agreement. Where the private sector controls utilization it does so similarly through the ownership of a legal interest. Public or private sector control may each permit enjoyment of the site by the general public or private individuals. Private use is synonymous with privileged use and presupposes specific individual rights of use exercised primarily by those selected by the controller of the facilities in question. Rights of use can be conveyed in numerous ways including invitation or membership of an accepted organization. The primary concern of this book is the public use of facilities whether on publicly or privately owned land. Although the specific criteria against which management performance is judged may vary between public sector and private sector landowners, to claim that this must of necessity give rise to fundamental differences in the management discipline governing the management of land in the two sectors is manifestly spurious and may, therefore, be viewed as an excuse for management inadequacies.

The public sector has, for many years, been active in providing recreation facilities at national and local levels in urban and rural areas. Much of this provision typifies the principle that provision should respond to need rather than demand. Need tends to be expressed in terms of participation rates for readily identifiable, even stereotyped facilities. The inadequacies of this approach were expressed in 1967 in the Pilot National Recreation Survey published by the British Tourist Authority (British Travel Association/University of Keele, 1967). The report of the survey pointed out that

there is no ‘national’ recreational man (or woman) whose use of leisure may be taken as typical for the country as a whole: in fact recreation appears to be one of these characteristics of our national population that varies profoundly on a regional scale. There is no stereotyped national pattern in our use of spare time, only a set of completely varying patterns, strongly idiosyncratic, and themselves probably composed of even more intricate sub-regional and local variations … Aggregation to the scale of the ‘Standard Region’ involves a first stage of generalization with some loss of sharpness of focus: further aggregation of major regional contrasts to yield a single national pattern blurs the image still further; though clearly for many purposes the generalized national picture is the relevant one, and indeed a necessary frame of reference for more detailed analysis on a finer regional scale. In short, the patterns of recreational activity in Britain are a mosaic and only quite local studies are likely to reveal its full detail.

Further examination of the stereotyped nature of much public-sector provision leads to the suggestion that this is not through inherent lack of imagination (quite the contrary in many instances). The practical manifestation of the judgement of the British Travel Association survey is that recreational provision will be based on the most basic of common denominators and resulting, for example, ‘in a simple’ natural site and access to it.

In making land available for outdoor recreation the public sector may, initially at least, provide only basic facilities, leaving users of the site to do what they like on it. This level of provision has now come to be regarded as a free good; it has also, incidentally, led to the criticism that these facilities cater for the better-off, being those best equipped to make use of basic facilities. Clearly, when members of the public are required to pay for recreation, they expect to receive more than they could get elsewhere free of charge. Commercial enterprises must, therefore, go beyond the provision of the most basic facilities (unless they are unique in character or occurrence) and develop facilities which rely les...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Chapter 1 An introduction to recreational land use
• Chapter 2 The institutional framework of public sector provision of recreation
• Chapter 3 Management and the legal environment
• Chapter 4 Market analysis and consumer behaviour
• Chapter 5 Resource evaluation
• Chapter 6 Management planning
• Chapter 7 Site monitoring and control
• Chapter 8 Financial monitoring and control
• Chapter 9 Budgeting and measures of performance
• Chapter 10 Interpretation
• Index