It’s always amusing to see people tripping over a massive failure in logic so well done to the Campaign for the Preservation of Rural England for so enlivening the nation. They’re complaining that poor people don’t have the access they think they should to the national parks. Actually, not quite, for there’re quite a few poor people who actually live in National Parks – hill farmers for example. The more detailed and specific complaint is that the country’s socially deprived areas seem to be a long way – 15 miles! – from the National Parks.
Well, yes, it seems fairly obvious why this is so:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] From Exmoor to Northumberland, the country’s poorest people are being denied access to England’s most beautiful countryside and missing out on the mental and physical health benefits that can result, research has found. Almost half of the country’s most socially deprived areas are more than 15 miles by road from 10 national parks and 46 areas of outstanding natural beauty (AONB), according to a submission to a government review into how national assets are being managed. The worst for accessibility is an area between Leicester, Grantham, Kettering and Corby. Other places out of range include Liverpool, Nottingham, Birkenhead and South Shields. Wealthier areas such as Exeter, Bath, Oxford and Brighton are far better connected. The study was commissioned by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) [/perfectpullquote]It should be fairly easy to work out what is happening here. In fact it is fairly easy to work out what is happening here. Those National Parks are the more glorious areas of the British countryside. Those areas of social deprivation are the urban slums. And it’s just one of those things that the countryside tends not to be urban, nor urban out in the country. You know, they being the direct opposites of each other.
So, the actual CPRE complaint boils down to the pretty bits of the country aren’t in the middle of towns and isn’t this appalling?
CPRE is a charity so perhaps we’d like to rethink our habit of sending money off to people quite this dim?
Why don’t we just designate a few city centres as National Parks? Problem solved!
Of course in reality they are just limbering up for their next paper – “People Living Near National Parks Have Poor Access To Theatres, International Transport And Harrods”….
Pretty sure my extremely well-off part of London, and the bit next door which is even better off, are a long, long way from the National Parks, particularly those up North. So the wealthiest are also hundreds of miles from these lovely things…
Which do they want to relocate–the slums or the pretty parts?
Let’s frack, build housing, even build towns just outside the national park boundaries. And remove the subsidies that prevent nature taking over. Oh no, the CPRE are the biggest objectors to development which affects the aspect of their spaces, and want to keep the hand outs for their mates.
I’d love to see a scatter plot of houses owned by CPRE members on a map. The filth.