SsSMSSSsM^^jaw^^ INDEX Page Preface . - . iii The Speakers . v Opening Remarks: R.J.S. Hookway Director _, Country side Commission . 1 SESSION 1 : COUNTRYSIDE RECREATION AND ITS PLACE IN MEETING LEISURE NEEDS The promise - for whom have we aimed to provide , and how was it to be achieved? M. Dower _, Dartington Amenity Research Trust . 3 The city-dweller and the countryside 2. StrelitZj Institute of Family and Environmental Research 3o The reality - for whom are we actually providing? A.M.H. Fitton3 Countryside Commission . 38 SESSION 2 : FUTURE TRENDS IN LEISURE AND COUNTRYSIDE RECREATION Future prospects for work and leisure M'. Hill,, School for Advanced Urban Studies . 74 SESSION 3 : PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES t Access : can present, opportunities be widened? M. Shoardj Centre for Environmental Studies . 86 I , Recreation pressures in the countryside R.M. Sidaway; Countryside Commission; and ) •££> F.B. 0 'Connor j Nature Conservancy Council )' I The oppc^rtAJiu.tiej3^hich have^ been/ created in Hollanci - A case study I L. Matthijsse^ Spaamwoude . 156 Creating _oppg^rtunities f^r townspeople -_the^ city farm and countryside_provision Ed Berman., Inter-Action Trust Ltd. 168 SESSION 4 : COUNTRYSIDE FOR ALL? THE IMPLICATIONS FOR PLANNING AND RESEARCH 1 Panel discussion , . 18O List of delegates . I CRRAG members . Inside back cover I 11.1 PREFACE CRRAG is a technical liaison committee which was established in 1968 to ensure that the powers of its government agency mem- _ bers to undertake research and experimentation into aspects of • countryside recreation were used as effectively as possible. ™ Subsequent legislation has brought about changes to the agencies concerned and hence membership of the Group has been widened from time to time; it has also been joined by the local authority associations whose members not only rank amongst the chief 'cus- tomers ' for research undertaken but also themselves carry out a good deal of research, experimentation and monitoring, mainly in a local context. CRRAG is thus concerned to keep its members in touch with current work; but the Group also publishes information on current research and statistics and holds a conference each year . The earlier conference themes dealt with technical subjects I but more recently CRRAG has taken issues of policy-interest as a • focus for discussion designed, inter alia, to bring to light gaps in research which member agencies or others might wish to follow up in-due course. In selecting a theme for their 9th conference, CRRAG took the .view that it would be valuable to turn to the wider issues of countryside recreation thus they selected the conference theme 1 Countryside for All?' The purpose of the'conference is to stimulate discussion of one of the most fundamental areas of interest about the countryside, namely the use people actually make of it for recreation. In selecting this topic for debate, CRRAG is conscious that the canvass is a very wide one. The term 'countryside recreation1 is broad in compass and embraces a variety of activities which differ _ from time to time and from place to place and are enjoyed by a • wide range of people. ' -- Last year's CRRAG conference highlighted the need for 'the providers' (local authorities, public agencies and private entrepreneurs) to have a clear understanding of 'the market' for any particular facility, not only to ensure its operational success but also to fulfil wider social obligations. To do this 'the providers' need the right information on which to base their judgements, yet this they rarely have. Of course, many surveys have been undertaken at national, regional and local levels, but it remains to be seen whether they give more than a partial view. Do such surveys illuminate people's deeper 'needs' or explain why some people do not visit the countryside at all? These questions are likely to become increasingly important if, as predicted, people's leisure time grows. I AC- CM P2 The conference will therefore consider the development of tt countryside recreation movement and how, over the years, ideas have been put into practice. It will look at the use different sections of society make of the countryside for recreation and th way in which these activities fit into the wider spectrum of leisure and recreation. rt will examine historic trends and likely future developments in shifting patterns of demand. It wi pose the question as to whether it is realistic to try to provide for all sections of the community in the countryside: realistic both in the sense that not everyone is attracted to or able to take up existing opportunities - perhaps the range can be j'iU. ." extended to cater for broader tastes; and in the sense that the fabric of the countryside, field or village, is fragile and the accommodation of. future pressures requires careful planning and •*7 ,-VV management. CRRAG hopes to have identified areas where further research is necessary for planners and managers in the public, private and voluntary sectors to develop future policy. i It is hoped that a wider audience will derive value from the published report resulting from the -two days spent in discussion at York University. SESSION CHAIRMEN Session 1 R.J.S. Hookway Director, Countryside Commission Session 2 Professor J.A. Patmore Department of Geography, University of Hull Session 3 B.K. Parnell I Head of Department of Planning, Glasgow School of Art Session 4 M. Dower S Dartington Amenity Research Trust tf: B i I OUR SPEAKERS* Sd Herman founded Inter-Action - the umbrella name for an associ- ation of charitable community-based companies and trusts - in 1968", since when he has worked with them as playwright, director and producer; community artist, educational film-maker and per- former . Michael Dower has worked with the GLC and the Civic Trust, where he wrote The Fourth Wave , a paper which influenced much of the thinking on leisure and recreation at the time. He then moved to a consultancy with the United Nations, working in Ireland, and in 1967 set up the Dartington Amenity Research Trust, a centre of ideas, information and expertise. Martin Fitton has taught at Ibadan University, and carried out research for the Social Science Research Council into religion in rural Wales. He is now social researcher at the Countryside Commission and has been working on the most com- prehensive survey ever undertaken in this country into country- side recreation. Michael Hill is Senior Lecturer at the School for Advanced Urban Studies at the University of Bristol. He has worked in the social policy field, specifically in terms of manpower policy and the study of unemployment. L. iMatthij sse trained originally as a forester and went into provincial government service in South Holland, developing and managing recreation areas. He then worked as General Manager of the Bielse Maas water recreation park and is now head of the management department of Spaarnwoude. He is studying for a Master's Degree in economics at Amsterdam University, and takes a special interest in public expenditure problems. He has published a cost effectiveness study in outdoor recreation. Brian O'Connor is Deputy Director of the Nature Conservancy Council and is a zoologist. He was formerly Director of Studies of the MSc course in conservation at UCL and consultant in rural land management, with concern for projects dealing with restor- ation and management at Kynance Cove and Ivinghoe Beacon. He also acted as ecological adviser for a tourism and recreation study in the United States, and in St. Vincent in the Caribbean. He joined the Nature Conservancy Council as Deputy Director in 1975 and still has an interest in planning and management for _ recreation, especially the impacts on areas with wildlife con- I servation interests. " Marion Shoard is a research fellow at the Centre for Environ- mental Studies and is working on the study of the impact of agricultural change on the countryside. Before that she worked * The biographical details regarding the speakers were abstracted from the respective chairmen's introductory remarks. Ed. for four years as assistant secretary to the Council for Protect ion of Rural England, and has recently completed a study of the attraction of moorland scenery to countryside activists and the way in which this has influenced countryside policy-making in Britain this century. She is the author of several articles on countryside recreation, Roger Sidaway was originally a professional forester and worked for ten years with the Forestry Commission, latterly on recreat- ional research. For the last four years he has been Head of the Countryside Information Branch of the Countryside Commission where he is responsible for social and economic aspects of re- search - and he is of course Chairman of CRRAG. Ziona Strelitz has degrees in social anthropology and town •-«. planning from Cape Town and University College, and is at pre- m sent the Assistant Director of the Institute of Family and En- vironmental Research in London, where she has worked for the past five years researching mainly into areas of leisure and the needs of parents. She has collaborated in the writing of two books: with Rhona and Robert Rapoport in Leisure and the Family Life :•#** Cycle and as co-author with them of Fathers^ Mothers and Others. ft:&?• DISCUSSION GROUP LEADERS i"-:';>' Group A T. Huxley . Countryside Commission for Scotland rv.il;.;- Tf*W " Group B M.F. Collins Sports Council Group C W. Lanning East Sussex County Council Group D R. Carter Scottish Tourist Board >*'i Group E M.M. Masterman . West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council .*• •f. Group F C. Bancroft \~: Forestry Commission ff Group G C.E.B. Gordon Nottinghamshire County Council Group H B.S. Duffield Tourism & Recreation Research Unit, Edinburgh Universi' Group I J.M.