In Hinterland this week: the cost of living crisis through a rural lens, mass trespass, poor housing, schools, towns and Rising Damp!

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Labour calls for emergency budget over cost of living crisis

In view of the fact it costs more, particularly in terms of heating, to live in rural settings, we will be keeping a close eye on how the skyrocketing price of oil and gas plays out in rural communities. This story tells us:

Labour is calling for an emergency budget to bring forward more measures to tackle the cost of living crisis.

Surges in fuel, energy and food prices are hitting people's pockets, with inflation running at a 30-year high.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told the BBC's Sunday Morning show the government's response had been "woeful" and demanded further measures like a windfall tax on energy firms.

A Downing Street source said the PM was working to ease the burden on families.

They said the PM was also focused on growing the economy, adding the Queen's Speech, where the government outlines its future policies, was coming up and these issues were "utterly central to what the government is trying to do".

The SNP called for an emergency budget earlier this month, saying the Tories had ignored the cost of living crisis "brewing under its watch".

The party's Treasury spokeswoman, Alison Thewliss, said: "Warm words now won't heat up homes or food - only action will.

"The chancellor must immediately return to Parliament with an emergency budget that finally puts money into people's pockets."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61207802

Kinder Scout trespass: How mass action 90 years ago won ramblers roaming rights

We still have a very contested countryside and not everything about the impact of National Parks is seen as universally good. I think we will still be talking about the issues at the heart of this story in a further 100 years. It tells us:

On 24 April, 1932, a group of young workers decided to stake their claim to the English countryside by staging a mass trespass. The result was arrests, prison sentences - and an outcry that is credited by many as shaping the rural access we enjoy today. BBC News looks back at the uprising on the uplands - and asks what the future holds for roaming rights.

Just over 90 years ago, a typed notice began to circulate among the workers of northern England.

It called on people to join a Ramblers' Rally - a mass trespass - on Kinder Scout, the highest point of the Derbyshire Peak District.

Benny Rothman notoriously received a prison sentence for his part in the trespass

At that time Kinder - and much of the moorland around it - was kept exclusively for grouse shooting by its owner, the Duke of Devonshire, and his gamekeepers patrolled the land to see off walkers.

The rally resolved to challenge this situation.

Organised by the British Workers' Sports Federation, a Communist-influenced group, it extended a "hearty welcome" to the "young workers of Eccles", whether they had been rambling before or not.

The notice extended a hearty welcome to those who wanted to join the rally

Hundreds of men and women saw the advertisement and decided to join the gathering, planned for 14:00 BST on 24 April.

Among their number was Benny Rothman, a young mechanic.

Broadcaster Stuart Maconie has called for the subject of the trespass to be taught in schools

In a BBC interview in the 1980s, he said: "It was possibly a naive idea that if enough ramblers went on a ramble, no group of keepers could stop them because there would be more ramblers than keepers.

Five walkers - including Mr Rothman - were charged with unlawful assembly and breach of the peace and, at Derby assizes, were sentenced to between two and six months in prison for their part in the "riotous assembly".

The outcry that greeted the sentences has been credited by many with starting a movement that led to the foundation of Britain's national parks with the first - appropriately enough - being the Peak District in 1951.

Belinda Scarlett who manages the Working Class Movement Library, the home of the Benny Rothman archive and other archive material relating to the trespass, said the event was "one of the most important examples of direct action of the socialist and communist politics of the 1930s".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-61008955

Councils in England are failing to use new powers to block shoddy housing schemes

Whilst most of the examples here are urban I can think of some very bad rural examples. This story tells us:

A survey revealed last year that 41% of councils do not employ any urban designers, and 76% lack access to any advice on architecture.

The change to the country’s planning rules was part of a package of measures that ministers claimed would ensure new housing was “beautiful and well-designed”. The government is setting up an “Office for Place” to help “communities encourage development they find beautiful, and refuse what they find ugly”.

The report, published by the UCL-based Place Alliance, highlights 12 schemes rejected on design grounds since last July. The inspectorate found proposals for an unattractive block of 15 flats on the site of a demolished car park in Crawley in West Sussex would offer “unsatisfactory living conditions”. Some flats had limited natural light and the outside spaces were close to roads and railway lines. Others lacked privacy as windows were next to people passing on a walkway and close to cars queueing on a traffic gyratory system.

The inspectorate also backed Braintree district council’s efforts to block two estates on the edges of villages in Essex, where developers were trying to squeeze in large numbers of houses, jarring with houses nearby. Officials also turned down an appeal relating to five tower blocks on the former Westferry newspaper printworks site in east London. It was ruled the scheme – which led to a row about media mogul Richard Desmond’s contact with ministers tasked with planning decisions – would harm appreciation of the Greenwich world heritage site.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/apr/24/councils-in-england-are-failing-to-use-new-powers-to-block-shoddy-housing-schemes

Zahawi’s English schools white paper leaves many in sector underwhelmed

I think there is more to this White Paper than commentators give it credit for. Primary schools are still strongly represented in rural settings and it has some very interesting areas of focus in that context.

The document, entitled “Opportunity for all: strong schools with great teachers for your child”, did include at least one key measure that could significantly change the education landscape.

The single most impactful announcement was the promise that all schools in England would either be in a multi-academy trust or in the process of joining one by 2030, with a single regulatory approach.

Six years ago, Nicky Morgan was forced to do an embarrassing U-turn on a similar pledge as education secretary after backbench Conservative rebels rejected the idea of already high-performing schools being forced to become academies.

While most of the 3,500 secondary schools in England are now already academies, the great majority of the 16,800 primaries in the sector are not, with only 44% of mainstream schools in England having made the switch. “There is some logic to all schools becoming academies,” said one commentator. “We know the current system is fragmented. It’s logical to bring schools under the same regulatory framework.”

Critics, however, warn that joining an academy trust does not necessarily lead to higher attainment and that making all schools academies will be fraught with difficulties. Zahawi has sweetened the pill by offering local authorities with successful schools the chance to set up their own multiple-academy trusts. Faced with government pressure to academise, it remains to be seen whether schools, unions and local communities still have the energy for a fight.

Otherwise, the white paper covers familiar territory – the new and widely welcomed national register for children not in school, the use of data to modernise and improve tracking of attendance, the £30,000 starting salary for teachers, plus more and better teacher training.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/mar/28/zahawis-english-schools-white-paper-leaves-many-in-sector-underwhelmed

BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine wades into Bromyard backwards D row

We have hundreds of small towns across England, by my count almost 40 in Lincolnshire alone. I would be really interested apart from the “Elephant test” ie if its got flappy ears and a trunk its probably an elephant! How you would define a rural town? This article reflects a specific campaign, of which I have personal experience, to keep such often overlooked places on the agenda and I like the back to front “D”!

BBC Radio 2 host Jeremy Vine has waded into the row over a Herefordshire town's rebranding, suggesting the town could remove its vowels to take it into the 21st century.

The lunchtime host was joined by architect Bob Ghosh and local resident Chris Barltrop to discuss the controversial Bromyard rebranding project, which includes a backwards 'D' on national radio.

There has been widespread local criticism online after the rebranding, part of a £90,000 project aimed at sprucing the town up and enticing tourists was made public.

Host Jeremy Vine said there has been a big move in music to remove vowels from names, and suggested that perhaps the town could remove its vowels to bring it into line with the 21st century.

The group behind the designs say the response to the project, which also includes signage and bringing life to historic town alleyways and the bypass subway with artwork, has been 'overwhelmingly positive'.

K4 Architects said they had been encouraged by the response to the public exhibition held at the Conquest Theatre in Tenbury Road, followed by another four days at its town centre office.

Designs will be finalised in due course.

https://www.herefordtimes.com/news/20083989.bbc-radio-2s-jeremy-vine-wades-herefordshire-town-rebranding-row/

And Finally

Eric Chappell: Grantham-born Rising Damp writer dies aged 88

Just to prove there is more to Grantham than one famous MP….!!!

Eric Chappell, the creator of hit TV sitcoms Rising Damp and Home to Roost, has died aged 88.

Chappell, who was born in Grantham, Lincolnshire, in 1933, had several novels rejected by publishers before he decided to become a playwright.

He went on to win a Bafta in 1978 for Rising Damp, starring Leonard Rossiter and Frances de la Tour.

Reece Dinsdale, who starred in Home To Roost, paid tribute to him, saying his scripts were "a complete joy".

Chappell originally worked as an auditor for the East Midlands Electricity Board for 22 years.

When he turned his hand to writing plays, his Yorkshire-based story The Banana Box was staged at the Hampstead Theatre Club in 1970

It moved to the West End three years later.

The show was then adapted to become Rising Damp, which ITV broadcast over four series from 1974 to 1978.

Rising Damp, which also starred Don Warrington and Richard Beckinsale, was later adapted into a film, which was released in 1980.

Responding to the news of Chappell's death, actor Reece Dinsdale wrote on Twitter:

"Thank you for everything you did for me, sir. Your scripts were a complete joy to play. Great times!

"My love & deepest sympathies to his friends & family RIP Eric."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-61207651