Rural Wales: Wealth of beauty, poverty of opportunity
Wales Business — By Heledd Fychan on January 27, 2010 7:00 am
Rural Wales has still yet to arrive in the digital age - this creates barriers to home-working and the establishment of businesses
THERE IS undoubtedly a magical quality to rural Wales. From the striking coastline to the dramatic mountains of Snowdonia, you can’t help but be impressed by its beauty.
However, in reality, behind the idyllic scenes, day-to-day life can be tough – something many city dwellers who only occasionally visit on walking holidays or romantic getaways often fail to appreciate.
Those who live there day in, day out often face a number of obstacles such as lack of access to essential services and commodities that those of us who live in large towns and cities might never encounter.
Rural poverty is also a real problem, but tends to be low down the list of priorities for the majority of politicians because of to the scattered nature of the population.
However, if we don’t all wake up to these issues and address them, the very essence of rural Wales will be destroyed and this will have a devastating effect on the whole country.
Rural communities have been in decline for decades, as the average age of the population living in them has got older. Young people have always been lured away by the bright lights of the cities, but they used to return to rural areas after a few years, more often than not when they were ready to start a family of their own. Some still come back, but there is a distinct lack of opportunities to make it viable for others to return.
Unless there is a well-established family business or farm, or unless you’re a teacher, nurse, doctor, lawyer or dentist and are lucky enough to find a job, there is not much else on offer. Many factories have closed, and although there are jobs in the tourism sector, these are typically seasonal and not that well paid. And for those who would like to set up a small business, or work from home, they can face the most basic of barriers. Barriers that make it impossible for them to compete with city or town based businesses.
While many visitors might moan about the lack of mobile phone reception, an absence of wi-fi or even cable television when staying in some cosy cottage, how many have considered the impact simple things like this has on rural businesses?
People might complain even in Cardiff that their wireless network can be a bit slow at times, but what if you couldn’t get it at all? What if you were completely reliant on a dodgy dial up connection that couldn’t always cope with downloading files and uploading content? And what if there was a problem with your phone line and it took weeks to fix? You’d be furious. It could have a devastating impact on your business, leading you to miss out on new clients and even lose existing ones.
That’s the exact problem many of our rural businesses are facing, and the telecommunications companies don’t seem to be in any hurry to fix this as to them, it only affects a small percentage of the population. Sure, there are reassurances and plans in the pipeline with Digital Britain and so on, but in some areas this is a long way off becoming a reality.
As such, many businesses in rural Wales are being left behind in the digital age, and simply can’t compete. This is completely unacceptable, and acts as a deterrent for those who may well want to start up or grow a business in these areas.
There is also another major obstacle facing those who would like to return or move to rural Wales: house prices. A growing demand for second or holiday homes over the past two decades has created a disparity between earnings and house prices. Affordable housing is, therefore, essential in these areas and I welcome all the initiatives the Assembly have put in place regarding this. Long may they continue.
Local people should not be priced out of the market, and while we shouldn’t either stop people who love our country from buying properties here, planning departments need to appreciate the extent to which this is a problem.
While living in rural Wales may do wonders for your lungs with all the fresh air, it is impossible to ignore the impact the closure of local hospitals and the centralising or merging of services can have on rural communities.
Consideration must always be taken regarding realistic and not just estimated travelling and response times to access these services, and decisions should not be taken with sole consideration given to the size of the population.
Obviously, those living in the countryside accept that there can’t be a hospital or specialized unit in every small town, but is due consideration always given to the problems created by reducing services? For instance, there is the issue of public transport. Buses and trains are either non-existent or infrequent in many rural issues, making it an impossible option for those who need to attend regular hospital appointments. Also, how tiring must it be for a patient receiving chemotherapy or dialysis to make daily or weekly visits to hospital which may consist of a two or even three-hour round trip?
This is the reality that will face many people in Mid Wales with some mergers and closures that are being suggested, and we need to make it clear that this is just not acceptable.
The above, of course, are only a handful of examples and issues that could be mentioned. The impact on the Welsh language, the future of fishing and agriculture, closure of schools and so on are all important issues for rural Wales. We are lucky in Wales that we have a Minister for Rural Wales – Elin Jones – that understands all these issues and is willing to stand up for those whose voices are often ignored.
She’s not afraid of taking tough decisions when necessary, which undoubtedly contributed to her being awarded the Farming Champions Award in the Farmers Weekly Awards of late 2009.
But Rural Affairs should not be left solely to her, and to those who represent rural seats. All politicians need to take on board the importance of tackling these fundamental issues, and ensure that everyone in Wales has the right to be heard and a right to access basic services, not just the ones living in densely populated areas.
While those who live in rural Wales may face a number of challenges, they know they are also blessed to live in such an idyllic setting and be part of a certain way of life that most of us can only envy.
Rural Wales is the backbone of the country, and as such, rural affairs should in no way be seen as marginal or second rate. It provides us with most of the attributes that make Wales unique. And, as I have argued in a previous article, these attributes could be utilised further to boost the Welsh economy if we marketed ourselves better and developed a more robust tourism economy.
We should celebrate, rather than marginalise, all our varied communities and work together to promote every corner of Wales. Not just the most obvious ones.
Tags: business support, countryside, Economy, farming, rural
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5 Comments
Let’s not forget about the decline of agriculture across Wales, which this article doesn’t even touch upon, and which was the foundation for many businesses across rural Wales both directly and, more importantly, indirectly.
The simple fact of the matter is that agriculture has continued to decline at a worst rate in Wales than for the rest of the UK over the last decade or so:
- the economic contribution of agriculture has declined by 68.1% during the period 1997-2007, the worst performance of any UK region. In contrast, agriculture across the UK declined by 7%.
- in 1997, agriculture accounted for 2.2% of the Welsh economy, a higher level than the 1.4% for the UK economy. By 2007, this had declined to 0.5% of the Welsh economy as compared to 0.8% for the UK.
- the importance of Welsh agriculture has fallen relative to the rest of the UK and while Wales accounted for 6.3% of the UK’s agricultural sector in 1997, this had dropped to 2.2% cent a decade later.
- in 1997, Welsh agriculture was producing £634 million for the economy, but this had gone down to £202 million by 2007, a decline which accounts for over 60% of the reduction in overall UK agricultural output during this period.
- if the relative contribution of agriculture to the Welsh economy had merely been the same in 2007 as it had been in 1997, then the sector would have been generating an additional £770 million in output for the Welsh economy that year alone. With much of that wealth based in rural Wales, it would have had a far larger effect on employment and the economy than any funding being provided by WAG and the Rural Affairs Department.
It is also worth noting that agriculture accounted for 10% of the Powys economy back in 1997 but by 2007, this had fallen to 2%.
Imagine if any other sector’s output had fallen by 68% over a decade, then there would have been a massive reaction from politicians.
Unfortunately, their response has been as quiet as many of town centres across rural Wales that are a direct result of ignoring the decline of agriculture.
Interesting post and you hit the nail on the head with lot’s of things.
I disagree about Elin Jones. with her policy towars Badgers and the cull she is undoubtedly helped the farming community but may in the long run have damaged the tourist economy.
You say a ‘Wealth of beauty’ which is very true of the Pembrokeshire coastline. But I seemingly find few ‘natural’ spaces . The influence of intensive agriculture is massive in rural Wales. Of course the natural flora and fauna is seriously affected with loss or destruction of ecosystem. There is no question one will find more songbird variety in Hyde Park or St. James Park than one would find in the stark green fields of rural Wales which is a shame. Hopefully the assembly’s new policy Glastir will try and rectify this somewhat.
The RSPB see no recovery in farmland birds.
You have highlighted bus and train services. Much of this is down to county councils.
There is no question a different linguistic and genetic pool exists in rural Wales. Much more varied than in the towns. Cockneys, Brummies, Gloucestrians and other accents mix with locals. They bring a massive input to rural economies which the Assembly has not recognised or chooses not to recognise.
To discuss with DJE, the agriculture has declined in its worth to the Welsh economy. That is because farming lacks imagination, such as overproduction of milk which brings prices down. There is little variation. Tree growing could be a massive industry but there is not the will because the landowners are so well subsidised .
Heledd is right to highlight the problem of poverty in rural Wales – about a year ago I did some work on Ceredigion which showed that far from being a rural idyll it had problems (housing, low pay and lack of jobs) that were similar to those of the South Wales valleys. Where I disagree is that there is something special about ‘rural’ poverty. Poverty is poverty whereever you live, although the experience of lived poverty may differ from place to place, the fundamental issue is low income. Separating ‘rural’ poverty from bog standard poverty doesn’t help to develop effective action – anywhere.
The Welsh Assembly Government has always confused poverty with disadvantaged areas – they are not the same – and has adopted place-based solutions (e.g. Communities First, Flying Start etc). These do nothing to help the thousands of poor people who do not live in the targeted areas – rural and urban. WAG has NEVER had an anti-poverty strategy targetted on households, nor does it look at poverty as a whole issue – instead we have child poverty, fuel poverty, pensioner poverty etc etc.
Carving up poverty into different boxes creates an unseemly ‘poorer than thou’ contest, while hiding the perpetuation of poverty across generations – poor parents have poor children who live in fuel poverty who grown up eventually into poor pensioners. Better that these connections are recognised and the problem tackled headon.
Some excellent points. The decline of agriculture and the Welsh language, the digital divide, the loss of village schools and the long term issues of a low wage rural economy and unemployment are very real problems and too often forgotten.
But rural Wales has in many ways also enjoyed a renaissance in the last 40 years. After decades of depopulation that threatened to kill the countryside, from the 1970s onwards people started moving in in larger numbers than they were leaving and that has not stopped. The linguistic impact has been significant but there are economic benefits. Moreover, in rural counties between the 1991 and 2001 censuses there were rises in the share of population represented by 16-24-year-olds and a fall in the 65s-and-over. Rural Wales is still older than urban Wales but the picture is not completely bleak, especially when compared to the rural doom and gloom of the middle of the 20th century.
The housing situation cannot be blamed on second homes. At the 2001 census there were approaching twice as many vacant properties in rural Wales as second homes. House price inflation has been excessive everywhere and first time buyers on an average wage find it impossible to buy somewhere regardless of whether they live in town or country. The ratio between average incomes and average house prices is the same in Gwynedd as it is in Cardiff. Even in Blaenau Gwent, where prices are most affordable, the average house cost 4.5 times the average income. The problem is however worst in Ceredigion where average house prices are ten times average earnings. That is wholly unjust and wholly unsustainable.
None of this (beyond the language) is peculiar to rural Wales and rural voices have become deeply marginalized in contemporary Britain. It’s good to hear someone sticking up for them.
I read this article some time ago, and it saddens me that this state of rural Wales. I suspect however that what rural Wales is experiencing is true for many rural communities in the industrialised world. I would need to study the issue more; perhaps it may be studied by an independent think-tank and/or the Assembly?
One thing that is perhaps not highlighted as well is the role that the loss of agriculture in Wales has had on the real estate market. With agriculture in decline, and with the youth not returning in the numbers that they once were, older farmers (without anyone to take on the family business) are more likely to sell to developers, who in turn create speculative development communities.
In the article Heledd, you mention that you welcomed Assembly initiatives that are in place to address affordable housing. I am curious what exactly they are? I have been searching online for some of them but haven’t uncovered that yet.