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This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from Explore Bristol Research, http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk Author: Mills, Elizabeth A Title: Changes in the rural spatial economy of an English county (Somerset 1947-1980). General rights Access to the thesis is subject to the Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International Public License. A copy of this may be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode This license sets out your rights and the restrictions that apply to your access to the thesis so it is important you read this before proceeding. Take down policy Some pages of this thesis may have been removed for copyright restrictions prior to having it been deposited in Explore Bristol Research. However, if you have discovered material within the thesis that you consider to be unlawful e.g. breaches of copyright (either yours or that of a third party) or any other law, including but not limited to those relating to patent, trademark, confidentiality, data protection, obscenity, defamation, libel, then please contact [email protected] and include the following information in your message: •Your contact details •Bibliographic details for the item, including a URL •An outline nature of the complaint Your claim will be investigated and, where appropriate, the item in question will be removed from public view as soon as possible. CHANGES IN THE RURAL SPATIAL ECONOMY OF AN ENGLISH COUNTY (SOMERSET 1947-1980) Elizabeth A. Mills Department of Geography A thesis submitted to the University of Bristol in accordance with the requirements for the Degree of PhD in the Faculty of Social Sciences July 1988 ABSTRACT This thesis examines changes in the rural spatial economy of an English county during the postwar period. In the highly integrated economies of which Britain is one, such changes may best be understood from an urban systems perspective. A review of recent trends in the urban systems of many advanced industrial nations reveals shifts in the flows of population and employment, previously towards the largest metropolitan centres, towards small settlements and rural areas - a process referred to as 'counterurbanisation'. The literature on counterurbanisation has until recently displayed an urban bias. It is argued that in order both to advance explanation of this trend and to anticipate policy issues in the new areas of non metropolitan growth a rural focus is required. Of particular interest to those responsible for the formulation and implementation of planning policies are the relationships between counterurbanisation and service provision. Hitherto the lack of detailed time series data on services has hampered an investigation of such links. This thesis provides a review and analysis of a unique set of data on service provision in the rural areas of Somerset, collected by H E Bracey, for the year 1950. This provides the base line for the generation of consistent and comparable data thirty years on, and thus for the measurement of service changes against a background of counterurbanisation, increasingly evident in the rural parishes of Somerset and Avon. This thesis also argues the need for a policy focus in rural geography. It demonstrates the influence which Bracey's work had on rural settlement planning in the postwar period and the contribution which the 1980 follow-up survey has made to local knowledge about rural communities and, more broadly, to the debate on the impacts of rural planning policies and their possible reformulation as counterurbanisation continues. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I should like to thank all those who took part in the research project on which the empirical work for this thesis is based, in particular the many parish respondents and all those who assisted with clerical, coding and typing work, notably Jean Lawton. I am particularly grateful to Bernice O'Flynn (now Roberts), the Countryside Officer of Avon Community Council while the empirical work was in progress, and Rhys Taylor and Sarah Buchanan her counterparts in Somerset, along with all their colleagues who took such an interest in this project. Thanks are also due to officers of Avon and Somerset County Planning Departments - Paul Tansy, Nigel Tibbs and Lindsay Smith in Avon and David Illingworth and Trevor Hart in Somerset. I should also like to thank friends and colleagues in the Departments of Geography and Social Administration and in the Computer Centre at Bristol University, especially Simon Godden and Madeleine Chinnick for their technical assistance and Allan Frey for his helpful comments. Steve Kelly, Edward Thomas and Richard Dunn provided essential statistical advice. Special thanks must go to Professor Ken Young at the Institute of Local Government Studies, Birmingham University, and Mike Tricker at Aston University for many useful discussions. Carol Bates and Patsy Garrard assisted with the typing and provided much additional practical help for which I am especially grateful. Finally, particular thanks must go to my supervisor, Professor Peter Haggett for his advice and encouragement throughout, and to Howard Bracey whose pioneering efforts provided an inspiration for this work. This thesis is dedicated to my father who died before the work was completed. DECLARATION This thesis is the original work of the candidate except where acknowledgement is given, and has not previously been submitted for a degree in this or any other university. zi,i,.*-0 .1.12; I 4) Elizabeth A. Mills AUTHOR'S NOTE Although this thesis is submitted under my full name, Elizabeth A.Mills, I am usually known as Liz Mills and have a number of publications under this name. Bibliographic references to my work are therefore listed under MILLS L. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Research Aims 1 1.2 Changing Rural Services: a Long Term Perspective 1 1.3 The Changing Rural Community 2 1.4 A New Focus for Rural Geography 4 1.5 The Research Task 6 PART I POSTWAR CHANGES IN THE SPACE ECONOMY 9 2. URBAN SYSTEMS: AN URBAN PERSPECTIVE 10 2.1 Introduction 10 2.2 An Urban Systems Framework 11 2.3 Recent Changes in the Urban Systems of Advanced Industrial Nations: Events, Explanations and Implications 15 2.4 Discussion 39 3. COUNTERURBANISATION: A RURAL PERSPECTIVE 41 3.1 Introduction 41 3.2 Advancing Explanation 41 3.3 Implications of Growth in Rural Areas 44 3.4 Counterurbanisation and Service Provision 49 3.5 The Need for Further Research 52 PART II A STARTING POINT: SURVEYS OF SOMERSET'S RURAL PARISHES IN 1947 AND 1950 53 4. BRACEY'S STUDIES OF SOMERSET IN THEIR HISTORICAL CONTEXT 54 4.1 Central Place and Social Provision: the Theoretical Context 54 4.2 The Policy Context 58 4.3 Bracey's surveys: Aims, Methods and Findings 62 4.4 The Links between Theory and Planning 82 4.5 Some Concluding Comments 84 5. ASSEMBLING THE DATA FOR 1950 86 5.1 Geographical Coverage and Character 86 5.2 The Parish as the Unit of Analysis 89 5.3 Additional Variables 92 5.4 Qualitative Material 97 98 5.5 Data limitations 5.6 Some Concluding Comments 105 6. THE PARISHES OF SOMERSET IN 1950 107 6.1 'The Standard of Provision of Public Utility Services' 108 6.2 'The Scope of Commercial Facilities and Professional Services' 110 6.3 'Transport to the Nearest Town': Access to Services Outside the Parish 117 6.4 Educational Facilities 119 6.5 'The General Standard of Social Provision' 123 6.6 Services and Social Life: 'Withstanding the Shock of Modern Forces '? 128 PART III THIRTY YEARS ON: THE 1980 SURVEY 133 7. DESIGN AND EXECUTION OF THE 1980 SURVEY: AN INTERACTIVE RESEARCH APPROACH 134 7.1 Aspects of the Survey Design. 134 7.2 The Pilot Study 139 7.3 The Main Survey of Avon and Somerset 142 7.4 Evaluation of the 1980 Survey Method 151 8. THE PARISHES IN 1980: A DESCRIPTIVE OVERVIEW 153 8.1 Services 154 8.2 Halls, Social and Recreational Facilities and Social Life 174 8.3 Additional Information in the 1980 Data Set 182 8.4 Services and Social Life in 1980: Summary and Comment 184 PART IV CHANGES IN THE RURAL SPATIAL ECONOMY 187 9. THE CONTEXT OF CHANGE I : POPULATION TRENDS 1951-1981 188 9.1 Overall Population Trends 188 9.2 Population Characteristics of the Survey Parishes in 1951 and 1981 201 9.3 Evidence for Counterurbanisation? 208 9.4 Concluding Points 218 10. THE CONTEXT OF CHANGE II : POSTWAR PLANNING FOR RURAL SETTLEMENTS IN SOMERSET AND AVON 219 10.1 Introduction 219 10.2 Planning Under the 1947 System 221 10.3 Progress in the 1970s 235 10.4 The Somerset Structure Plan 237 10.5 Rural Settlement in an Urban Context: the Case of Avon 246 10.6 Conclusions 256 11. SYSTEMATIC ANALYSIS OF CHANGES IN THE RURAL SPATIAL ECONOMY 258 11.1 Introduction 258 11.2 Population Shifts 259 11.3 Service Shifts : A Parish Deficit Indicator 265 11.4 Service Shifts : An Alternative Approach Using Hierarchical Cluster Analysis 272 11.5 Cluster Analysis Results 277 11.6 Service Characteristics of Turnaround Parishes 294 11.7 Some Conclusions and Suggestions for Further Work 298 12. CONCLUSIONS 301 12.1 The Research Task in the Context of the Changing Urban System 301 12.2 Historical Precedents 302 12.3 The Follow-up Survey : Applied Rural Geography 302 12.4 The Changing Local Context 304 12.5 The Dynamics of Change 305 12.6 Implications for Urban System Concepts and for Policy 308 BIBLIOGRAPHY 310 APPENDICES 327 Appendix 1 Bracey's 1947 questionnaire 327 Appendix 2 Bracey's 1950 questionnaire 330 Appendix 3 Selection of the Survey Parishes 333 Appendix 4 Alphabetical list of parishes surveyed 360 Appendix 5 Coding scheme for Bracey's questionnaires 368 Appendix 6 The Parishes of Somerset in 1950: Services 377 Appendix 7 The Parishes of Somerset in 1950: Social and Sporting Facilities and Social Life 440 Appendix 8 The 1980 questionnaire and letter to respondents 470 Appendix 9 Copy of the Thatch community facilities questionnaire (Thatch Issue 2 Spring 1979) and list of parishes with information from the Thatch survey only 487 Appendix 10 Coding scheme for the 1980 questionnaire 492 Appendix 11 Examples of listing of facilities by parish.