Countryside Leisure and Jobs – CRRAG

Proceedings of The Countryside Recreation Research Advisory Group Conference 1985 Oxford Polytechnic 18-19 September COUNTRYSIDE LEISURE AND JOBS Edited by Hilary Talbot-Ponsonby Secretary to the Group Issued by Countryside Recreation Research Advisory (iroup School For Advanced Urban Studies Rodney Lodge Grange Road Bristol BS8 4EA Price £7 RECORDED AND PRINTED BY JANSSEN SERVICES PUBLISHKD BY COUNTRYSIDE RECREATION RESEARCH ADVISORY GROUP (CRRAG) 1985 ISBN 948 502 061 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION TO THE CONFERENCE Thomas Huxley, Chairman of CRRAG, 1 Deputy Director, Countryside Commission for Scotland PART I: WHAT SORT OF JOBS 3 Introduction 5 Thomas Huxley, Chairman of CRRAG, Deputy Director, Countryside Commission for Scotland Jobs in Rural Areas: Where? When? Whether? 6 Martin Whitby, Reader in Agricultural Economics, Newcastle University Rural Employment Creation: Quantity or Quality? 15 James Hughes, Professor and Head of the School of Policy Studies, Cranfield Institute of Technology (formerly Head of Policy and Research Division, HIDE) Rural Employment Creation: A Private Sector View 23 Peter Craig, Operations Director, PGL Young Adventure Ltd. Discussion 32 Introduction to the Afternoon Session 38 Roger Clarke, Assistant Director - Policy, Countryside Commission Rural Employment Creation: A Community View 40 Trevor Bailey, Employment Promotion Officer, Community Council for Wiltshire Discussion 48 PART II: JOB CREATION IN SOME LEISURE SECTORS 53 Introduction ' 55 Roger Clarke, Assistant Director - Policy, Countryside Commission Countryside Sports and Leisure - Private Estates 56 Kenneth Roys ton, Land Agent to the Duke of Buccleuch and The Boughton Estates Ltd. Farm Tourism . 60 Gerald Bulman, Eastern Region Socio-Economic Adviser, Agricultural Development and Advisory Service Holiday Parks 64 Dennis Woodman, Caravan Park Owner and Leisure and Recreation Consultant Leisure on Inland Waterways 67 Robert Hall, Leisure Planning Officer, British Waterways Board Nature Conservation and Employment 69 Peter Downing, Acting Director, Dartington Institute The National Trust 71 Cecil Pearse, Assistant Chief Agent, National Trust Employment Multipliers: More Than Advocacy? 76 D.R. Vaughan, Senior Lecturer in Tourism Marketing, Dorset Institute of Higher Education Discussion 89 PART 111: EVENING SESSION 97 HIDE and it's Work 99 H1DB Video Experiences of Public/Private Partnerships Nigel Walker, Leisure Marketing Manager, British Waterways Board PART IV: MAKING IT HAPPEN - 101 Introduction 103 Michael Taylor, Director, Countryside Commission for Scotland Catalysts for Job Creation in Countryside Recreation 104 John Slater, Director, Southern Tourist Board The Wirral Way 110 Brian J. Barnes, Leisure Consultant (formerly of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral) Discussion 116 PART V: THE WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF EMPLOYMENT GENERATION 123 Introduction 125 Michael Taylor, Director, Countryside Commission for Scotland The Peak District Integrated Rural Development Project 126 Ken Parker, Project Leader, Peak District National Park Key Macro Influences on the Rural Environment 136 Fiona Stewart, Editor of 'Leisure Futures', The Henley Centre for Forecasting Discussion • 148 CLOSING REMARKS 156 Thomas Huxley, Chairman of CRRAG, Deputy Director, Countryside Commission for Scotland DELEGATE LIST 157 INTRODUCTION TO THE CONFERENCE Thomas Huxley Chairman of CRRAG, Deputy Director, Countryside Commission for Scotland Welcome to the 1985 CRRAG Conference on Countryside Leisure and Jobs. For those of you who are interested in the fine tuning of how these things come about, there was a great deal of discussion as to whether there should be a colon somewhere in the title. You can place it where you wish, or leave it out, as in the published programme title, where the conference theme is well described: The present level of unemployment and how to create more jobs is a subject occupying the minds of many people. Most experts predict that high levels of unemployment will persist for some years. The future may bring a lowering of retirement age and a shorter working week. This suggests more leisure time for many people and hence an increase in demand for leisure activities. Recreation and tourism are seen as growth sectors that can help revitalise declining rural areas. Does this happen in practice? What is the employment impact of leisure facilities provided by public authorities, the commercial sector, private individuals and voluntary bodies? How can we encourage more jobs in the leisure field? Michael Collins has just reminded me that this is now the 14th CRRAG conference, so we are one over the baker's dozen and into our teens. With the ups and downs of maintaining these kinds of conferences, this is a respectable record and I hope that this conference is as enjoyable and as interesting as previous ones., Editor's Note: Most of the Conference Proceedings are reported verbatim. The views expressed are therefore not necessarily those held by CRRAG or the editor. Part l: What Sort of Jobs INTRODUCTION Thomas Huxley Chairman of CRRAG, Deputy Director, Countryside Commission for Scotland Our first speaker is Martin Whitby0 He has lectured at Newcastle University in Agricultural Economics since 1964 and is now "Reader in Rural Resource Development- Martin has studied, at one time or another, at Reading, Oxford and Cornell Universities and he spent a year in New Zealand. He is currently a consultant to the Asian Development Bank, the European Commission and the Countryside Commission. He is currently co-director of the Agricultural Environment Research Group at Newcastle University and has published two books, one on 'Rural Resource Development: An Economic Approach' and another on 'Rural Employment: Trends, Options and Choices' D I am sure you will all agree that Martin could not be a better person to open our conference on Countryside Leisure and Jobs. Our second speaker will be Professor James Hughes. Some of us have known Jim for quite a few years when he was Head of Research at the Highlands and Islands Development Board, Jim has always sought to connect and relate . the work that he was doing with other people and other organisations and this is something that a number of us have been grateful fora Professor Hughes read economics at Glasgow University and did research thereafter in the University and then moved to the Highland Board where he has been until this year when he became a Professor at Cranfield Institute of Technology in the School of Policy Studies. So we have another speaker with wide experience but it is particularly in relation to the work of the Highland Board that we have asked him to talk to us in this session. In choosing our speakers for the first session, we were very keen that they should provide you with a good overview and also provide practical examples that relate to the particular problems and issues that we are looking at. Our third speaker is Peter Craig who is Operations Director, PGL Young Adventure Limited. 'PGL' are the initials of the founder of the company. Peter has worked for PGL for many years and was trained at Leeds as an economist. JOBS IN RURAL AREAS: WHERE? WHEN? WHETHER? Martin Whitby Reader in Agricultural Economics, Newcastle University I have structured my paper around three main questions in the hope of setting the scene for the conference. The first question provides descriptive background but I also want to focus your minds on some of the other important issues in addition to the descriptive content of my first section. WHERE? Where, then, is rural Britain? This first question is not simple by any means. The latest analysis from OPCS (1984) presents Key Statistics for Urban Areas in Great Britain. In that volume they have produced a definition of 'rural' which does, at least, allow us to identify rural Britain with some consistency. A quick look at that material will give us a view of the total constituency we are dealing with. 1 have taken out the figures relating to England and Wales because that is easier than including Scotland. The Scots data is available in the same volume but is not quite comparable with England and Wales. OPCS defines rural Britain as anything that is not urban. Urban is defined essentially as land that is used for urban purposes. The classification is based on 20 ha blocks and those defined as urban must contain at least 1,000 people. Having defined those areas of land as urban, the remainder is rural. This approach is totally different from what they have done in the past. Earlier analysis used clustering techniques and before that OPCS used the straight forward administrative definition of rural districts. The new definition tells us that the total rural population in England and Wales (Table 1) is getting on for five million and that it is roughly divided between men and women. There is a slightly lower proportion of women in rural areas than in urban areas. TABLE 1 TOTAL (USUALLY RESIDENT) POPULATION, ENGLAND AND WALES, 1981 Total Male Female Number % Urban 21 ,174 22,426 43,600 89 .9 Rural 2,451 2,471 4,922 10 .1 Total 23 ,625 24,897 48,522 100 .0 Source: OPCS, 1984 More important to this conference, and more directly relevant, is the economic activity rates in rural areas because they tell us about the 'tone' of the labour market. Table 2 shows that, for men, the difference is very slight; that is, men are almost as likely to be in the labour force in rural areas as they are in urban areas. For women the situation is different in that they are substantially less economically active in rural than in urban areas. TABLE 2 PERCENTAGE ECONOMIC ACTIVITY RATES, ENGLAND AND WALES, BY SEX AND FEMALE MARITAL STATUS, 1981 Economically Economically active women active aged 16-59 men Single, widowed, aged 16-64 Married divorced Urban 90.4 57.8 69.8 Rural 89.9 49.2 64.0 Total 90.4 5.9 69.3 Source: OPCS, 1984 OPCS have divided off the single from the married in this presentation.

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