The Ragged Trouser Press

Cornwall Reports News Briefing

2017-12-20T08:35:00.001+00:00

Cornwall Reports News Briefing

2017-12-18T06:54:00.001+00:00

Tim who?

2017-12-05T12:15:00.003+00:00

My thanks to Liberal Democrat councillor Sue James’s blog for reminding me of this, first published by Sue on 30^th January 2017:

“In a Cornish Times interview, Tim Farron gave this message to those concerned about the future of our NHS `A LibDem led council would not accept the Government’s Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP) which is currently being consulted on.” He went on to say “This is a hugely important and largely misunderstood plan. It’s not about improving healthcare services, it’s about cuts of upto a quarter £billion. It’s unthinkable that a LibDem led Cornwall Council would give this plan support.’”

It's Sunday night and the results are in...

2016-12-04T20:19:00.006+00:00

It turns out that only 46% of Austrians are Nazis. Funny what counts as good news these days.

Jonathan Pie is right again

2016-12-04T18:35:00.004+00:00

Are there really 500 vulnerable elderly people at risk of harm and neglect in Cornwall's residential care homes?

2016-11-22T17:45:00.002+00:00

Just had a quick flick through the Care Quality Commission's online publication of inspection reports. Filter by Cornwall and then search those rated as "requires improvement" and you can see just how many residential care homes have been given exactly the same rating as the Panorama'd Clinton House, St Austell.

I make it 16 homes, with an average of 30 residents each - so around 500 elderly, vulnerable people, just waiting for an undercover reporter with a hidden camera. I'm happy to list those homes if anyone wants - one is run directly by Cornwall Council, another by its spawned charity Cornwall Care Ltd; the rest are completely private.

The CQC says there are 227 care homes for the elderly in Cornwall, and none is currently rated "inadequate." But the lesson of the Clinton House case is that a rating of "requires improvement" is, a bit like the CQC itself, inadequate.

I have previously blogged about the risks of a long memory. Does anyone else remember this speech in the House of Commons, from 1997? The sound of chickens arriving home?

Coming soon - the new Jerusalem

2016-11-11T07:24:00.002+00:00

Much relief at County Hall yesterday over the St Ives planning decision, in which the courts have ruled that councillors acted properly in allowing a ban on new-build second homes. The implications for local development plans across Cornwall are immense.

Among those sharing the love was Rob Nolan, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate for Truro and Falmouth (or wherever the Boundary Commissioners decide) who took to BBC Radio Cornwall to denounce the development of green field sites.

Of course, it was only radio - but it sounded remarkably like the same Rob Nolan who chairs Cornwall Council's Strategic Planning Committee, and who recently, and enthusiastically, supported the 236-lodge Camel Creek holiday resort between Wadebridge and St Columb - which is, er, in the open countryside.

Will Trump now come to Tintagel?

2016-11-09T07:57:00.000+00:00

Congratulations to John Mappin, the Tintagel hotelier whose bank balance is about to be swelled by his astute punt on the outcome of the United States Presidential election.

Mr Mappin correctly identified a growing "sod the lot of them" attitude among voters, responsible for the Brexit decision in the UK earlier this year and which he believed was also prevalent in the US.

I'm listening to Donald Trump on the radio right now. He sounds less loony than he did yesterday, saying he now wants to "reach out" to those who didn't vote for him.

We shall see. For the Democrats, the lesson is clear. They should have gone with Bernie Sanders.

Cornwall's care crisis

2016-11-08T08:52:00.000+00:00

Last night's news about the Clinton nursing home at St Austell, closed because of as-yet-unspecified "safeguarding" issues, throws sharply into focus the crisis caused by an ageing population and an underfunded service. For "underfunded" I could just as easily have written "uncaring" - it is all about priorities.

The Clinton home is part of the Morleigh group and can take up to 46 residents. Many have dementia.
In February, the Care Quality Commission made an unannounced inspection, found several things wrong, and told the management to pull their socks up. You can read that report here.

Such was the inspectors' concern - scalding risks, incontinence odours, residents forced to share flannels, inadequate respect for dignity etc - that they went back a few weeks later. Things appear to have gone downhill from there. Perhaps the real question is why it took nine months before anyone thought it was a good idea to move the residents somewhere else.

Never a good idea for a politician to duck a straight question

2016-11-06T09:57:00.000+00:00

And just for the record, the correct answer for any leader of the Opposition, when asked if he/she wants a general election, is always "yes."

Maybe I should move to Finland

2016-11-05T12:24:00.000+00:00

For reasons which might become clear over the next few weeks, I am currently investigating a variety of alternative funding models for journalism. The conventional media - hooked on listicles, click-bait and "sponsored content" - has seen its reputation plummet since I started this game 40 years ago (not that I think it's all my fault.)

There seems no doubt that the British press has set a benchmark for low standards and that the current regulatory framework has completely failed the public. Of all the 28 countries in the EU in 2014-15 the written press had the lowest trust rating, below even Greece and Serbia, according to a EBU report this summer.

Britain after Brexit

2016-11-04T08:42:00.000+00:00

This is what's at risk if we allow elected Members of Parliament to debate Article 50:

Gina Miller - woman of the year?

2016-11-03T12:28:00.000+00:00

Nothing like a good old constitutional crisis to sell newspapers (or blogs.) Expect a good deal of humbug as we now play "hunt the issue." The Brexit referendum decision is one thing. The right of Parliament to scrutinise and debate the process is another. If you want to know who is winning, watch the markets. Within the past few minutes, the pound has risen by 1 per cent.

On-farm slaughter, Mad Cow Disease and the balance of risk

2016-11-02T08:51:00.000+00:00

Decades ago, long before the then minister John Gummer sent his press office into meltdown by trying – in front of TV cameras - to make his young daughter eat a beef burger when she clearly didn’t want to, I was one of those nosy-parker reporters who kept asking awkward questions about Mad Cow disease.

I’m sorry to say that I made myself thoroughly unpopular with many in the agriculture industry, particularly the National Farmers Union, because it was a story that just would not go away. When a cat called Max, in Bristol, was shown to have died from Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, ministerial assurances of a so-called “species barrier” suddenly collapsed.

We later learned that there had been a long-running and very serious feud between the Department of Health and what was then called the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food over the level of risk to humans. I’m happy to report that although scores of humans did indeed die from a variant of the illness, which the government accepted was “most probably” caused by eating infected beef, fears of a widespread epidemic claiming thousands of lives appear to have been overblown.

And although there is the occasional, unexplained, spontaneous outbreak of BSE, the raft of regulations introduced in the wake of Mad Cow disease ensures that the risk to humans remains vanishingly small.

You might therefore think it is surprising that I would now promote the case for relaxing one aspect of those regulations. I do so for two reasons – first, because the regulation itself fails to do the job it is required to, and secondly because there would be widespread social and economic benefits to rural Cornwall. This is the rule book relating to mobile on-farm slaughter.

On-farm slaughter used to be widespread, but has now almost completely disappeared because – after Mad Cow disease – the government was determined to clamp down on any risks associated with high-risk offal, particularly from bovine spines. Instead, cattle now have to be transported – often over long distances – to reach slaughterhouses which meet very high standards of clinical cleanliness.

What makes the existing rule fall on the wrong side of “daft” is that it is still perfectly OK to slaughter “at home” provided you eat the beef yourself, and don’t try to sell it to anyone. The Food Standards Agency says: “It should be noted that home slaughter is likely to carry a greater human health risk than slaughter that takes place in approved premises.”

But there are still some farmers, particularly smallholders, who do not like the potentially distressing business of transporting livestock to slaughter. So how do you safely slaughter on your farm? The answer is that you call an expert – but experts now are themselves becoming very rare.

One such expert is Paul Marshall, of Wadebridge (left,) whose family has worked in the livestock slaughter business for generations. He could well be the last mobile slaughterman in Britain. Paul’s job is not without risk. Not from the livestock, but from bureaucrats.

Technically, if he kills the beast it has been “placed on the market” and both he and the farmer risk prosecution. If he merely “assists” in the slaughter, then he is in the clear. The farmer still risks prosecution if any meat is sold because the rules say “the owner must only supply his immediate family.” So presumably spouse and children are OK, but great uncles and second cousins are not.

From the point of view of protecting human health, the rules are at best very weak. They should be re-visited and re-written. There would also be a social and economic benefit to keeping the value of this part of the meat trade within rural areas, rather than see it lost to multi-national corporations.

The rules, of course, have their roots in an office in Brussels. It might be that Brexit changes the game. My essential point is that it was not traditional mobile slaughtermen who caused Mad Cow Disease, more than 30 years ago. It was most probably contaminated cattle feed and a high-tech industrial approach to agriculture. We might have thrown the baby out with the bathwater.

Before you park your car, think of a word to describe your sex

2016-11-02T08:22:00.000+00:00

This is part of a car parking survey which a firm of consultants is currently carrying out on behalf of Cornwall Council. It certainly made me think.

How would I describe my sex? I'm not sure I understand the question, but surely you can tell by the brilliant way I park my car. You have to feel sorry for the poor official who had to reply on behalf of the council: "It is important to know things like gender orientation so we can target services. By collecting monitoring information we are able to provide evidence that we are reaching people that need our services and identify when we are not," she said."

The curse of a long memory

2016-10-31T16:38:00.000+00:00

The weekend's anti-Devonwall protest at Launceston was a well-supported, jolly affair - making many excellent points in support of its primary objective. A shame that so much of it appeared to be a platform for the Liberal Democrats, whose position on sharing a constituency with Devon is, at best, rather flexible.

I do not doubt the sincerity with which they campaigned at the weekend. But readers with long memories will have no trouble recalling what happened the last time a Right-wing government with an anti-democratic agenda tried this, back in 2010/2011.

That particular Right-wing government was supported by the Liberal Democrats, as the price they were willing to pay for a referendum on proportional representation.

If you want to know how your MP voted in the The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill on 2nd November, 2010, this blog was there to record it at the time.

All six of Cornwall's MPs, including the Liberal Democrats, voted in favour of Devonwall, and against maintaining the integrity of the border.

A heart-breaking disaster

2016-10-26T05:57:00.000+01:00

I write this with a barely-suppressed tear in my eye and a couple of text books open on the desk in front of me. I am searching, painfully, for an answer. Up in the orchard, I have suffered a disaster. All of my bees have died.

Their demise appears to have been very sudden. A few weeks ago they were buzzing about very contentedly, and appeared to be very successful at filling their frames with honeycomb.

As a novice beekeeper, I might have failed to notice any distress – but I’m sure I did everything the books advise, trying to strike a balance between observation and not interfering too much. The hive is in good order and the bees had plenty of food.

The text books offer a bewildering array of possible causes. The West Country appears to be a relatively dangerous place for bees, with the most recent British Beekeepers Association surveys reporting around 15% of colonies dying here in recent years, every year. There is much talk of predation by wasps, illnesses caused by the varroa mite virus and other diseases, and – increasingly – the consequences of crop spraying.

Also, my bees were a “rare breed” – the small black Cornish honeybee – which is supposed to be relatively immune to varroa. But I guess there must be a reason why the breed is rare. And bees do seem vulnerable all over the world.

A few years ago, a third of the entire bee population of the United States died in one winter. The precise cause is still a mystery but there is no shortage of beekeepers blaming their over-chemicalised agricultural sector.

A friend told me he thought he had seen one of the large Asian hornets in the village recently. They were first seen in Gloucestershire a few months ago and have now been confirmed in Somerset. So far there is no official record of them in Cornwall, but they are deadly to bees.

I did know that in summer, worker bees live on average for only six weeks. In winter, with less work to do, they can survive for up to five or six months. Queens live for up to four years, but rely on the worker bees for food.

The experience reminds me of those years, a few decades ago, when my children went through a series of small pets. The smaller the animal, the more rapidly they seemed to die without warning. Hamsters, for example, which raced around their cage wheels one day, would be strangely reluctant to wake up the next.

It is not possible to over-estimate the value of bees, particularly in terms of return on investment. They contribute more than £650m to the UK economy a year through their pollination services. Some 85% of the UK’s apple crop and 45% of the strawberry crop relies on wild bees and managed honeybees to grow.

None of which gets me very far in considering what I can do now. The floor of the hive is covered in dead bees. It is heart-breaking. I welcome suggestions. I suspect there is nothing else for it, other than to scrub out the hive and start again in the spring.

If you think the loss of Marmite was bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet

2016-10-19T11:27:00.000+01:00

The cartoonists, of course, had a field day. We are now at roughly the half-way point between the Brexit vote and the formal “triggering” of our departure from the European Union. Some of the chickens are coming home to roost. The impact on rural areas is going to be particularly noticeable.

As I write this, fishermen are meeting in Newlyn to consider what their industry might look like in a few years. Freed of the Common Fisheries Policy, which was widely blamed for the decline in Cornwall’s maritime interests, there is eager anticipation that “getting our fishing waters back” will now follow.

Well, maybe. It was only a few years ago that British fishermen needed protection from the Royal Navy as 40 French boats surrounded five British vessels during the so-called “Scallop War” in the English Channel.

Britain only ever had 13 per cent of the EU’s total sea area – but had been allocated 30 per cent of the total catch quota, and had the right to fish just about anywhere. Perhaps the real problem is that we just don’t eat enough fish – nearly two thirds of all fish landed in Britain are exported to other EU countries.

At the moment, those fish exported from Cornwall to Europe are free of additional taxes. But outside of the EU, tariffs are almost certain. I have to say that I don’t see a massive expansion of the Cornish fishing fleet any time soon.

Cornwall’s farmers were divided over Brexit, but none will welcome the prospect of beef tariff exports of 59 per cent. Dairy farmers whose income depends partly from cheese exports will soon be looking at tariffs of 40 per cent. Cornish vineyards might not export a huge amount, but a 14 per cent tariff will not help their market to grow.

Plenty of farmers have warned that unless they are allowed to hire (cheap) migrant workers, their crops will have to rot in the ground. One farmer went on TV last week to predict that Britain will run out of fresh fruit and vegetables in only five days once the migrant agricultural workers have gone.

And the Common Agricultural Policy payments to farmers – worth an average of £16,000 a year, each – will have to be replaced by some hitherto unspecified deal with the UK government. Good luck with that.

The value of sterling – one of those boring bits of news they stick at the end of each bulletin – will also impact on food prices in supermarkets. The pound has dropped nearly 20 per cent since June, and will almost certainly fall further and faster as we approach the March deadline for starting formal withdrawal from Europe.

It was the slump in sterling which saw last week’s Great Marmite Crisis, as suppliers and retailers squabbled over which of them should feel the pain.

My friends at Defra tell me to stop worrying and just look on the bright side. The massive shake-up in food chains could lead to a renaissance in agricultural markets, they say, restoring the Cornish countryside to the green and pleasant land we always thought it was.

Indeed. Once I have found someone willing to invest in my latest “flying pigs” wheeze I will know that I have arrived in the New Jerusalem. Rule Britannia!

Bring back the deposit

2016-10-12T11:35:00.000+01:00

Going for my weekly jog along the country lanes I noticed that someone had dumped an old cooker by the side of the road. Ugly, possibly dangerous, it looked almost as if someone was trying to open as shop dealing in second-hand goods. A dirty, tattered mattress lay in the hedge alongside, next to a broken armchair.

This week’s news that fly-tipping is on the increase will probably come as no surprise to anyone – the cost-benefit metric changed dramatically a couple of years ago when Cornwall Council introduced charges for taking certain types of rubbish to recycling centres.

Asbestos, tyres and general construction wastes have little “recycling” value and it wasn’t surprising that councils were keen to recover the costs of dealing with them. But now we know that the cost of not dealing with them is even higher – £67 million across the country, last year.

We are rightly indignant about the louts who spoil the beautiful Cornish countryside, but the problem is actually far worse in urban areas. Per head of population, the six councils with the worst problems are all in London. According to Defra, there were nearly one million cases of fly-tipping in England and Wales last year – more than a third of them in London.

While some of this fly-tipping stems from laziness, much of it appears to be organised. About a year ago we reported how three men were ordered to pay more than £262,000 for illegally dumping more than 60,000 tonnes of waste in South East Cornwall.

The men were a haulier, and two farmers, and between them they had dumped nearly 66,000 tonnes of builders’ waste on farms at Callington and Saltash.

Last year we also reported details released under the Freedom Of Information Act, which showed that Cornwall Council had spent £743,000 cleaning up fly-tipping since 2012, dealing with 12,000 cases.

In the 12 months since the charges were introduced at recycling centres, Cornwall saw an increase of 1,400 in the number of fly-tipping incidents.

All of these statistics make for pretty gloomy reading, so it is comforting to retreat to the world of sepia-tinged nostalgia and recall how, half a century ago, I used to make a few shillings by collecting empty bottles and taking them to the nearest off licence.

The idea was that consumers effectively paid a deposit on a glass bottle, which was then refunded when the empty bottle was returned to a participating retailer. The system effectively died out in Britain with the advent of disposable plastic bottles.

But in the United States – where bottle deposits are still widespread – figures show that the higher the deposit, the more likely a bottle is returned intact. In the US, where container deposits are still widespread, there’s a 70% return rate. Empty bottles are worth five cents.

The deposit scheme is of course simply another way of collecting a tax – and enforcing the principle that the polluter should pay. Instead of charging council tax payers £67 million for dealing with fly-tipping, manufacturers could (and should?) impose a small “deposit” for the return of an item at the end of its life.

Perhaps with fly-tipping, we should recognise that what we are dealing with is a form of organised crime – and get our retaliation in first.

All eyes on St Ives

2016-10-05T12:04:00.000+01:00

Once upon a time, at this point in the year, I was likely to be found in a run-down seaside town somewhere, listening to all manner of plots and conspiracies advanced by a small group of desperate people who were trying to take over the country.

It didn’t matter that their political party was actually in government. They needed their party conference to take notice of their good ideas.

They were not alone. Every party conference had an exhibition area where lobbyists would hang out, distributing pencils and car stickers to anyone who loitered too long in one spot. This year, Cornwall Council has sent a small team to each of the main party conferences in the hope that somebody, somewhere, cares anything about what they think at County Hall in Truro.

As news filters back from this year’s conferences, I was reminded of the “Rural Coalition” – a network of organisations which formed in 2014 in the hope of influencing policies ahead of the 2015 general election.

Its founding premise was, and still is, a good one: that rural Britain should consist of vibrant, living, working communities and not become merely gated communities of wealthy retireds, who have been able to exploit house-price inequalities by stripping the equity out of London and the South East.

The question of social housing loomed large in the Rural Coalition “manifesto,” thrust at surprised conference delegates. There were also other fascinating facts: “By 2028 the over-85 age group is set to increase in rural areas by 186% (compared with 149% in the UK as a whole). A growing number needing social care. By 2029, it is estimated that there will be 930,000 people with social care needs living in rural areas.”

The Rural Coalition, which is led by former Euro MP (and Cornwall councillor) Lord Robin Teverson, was long on good questions but, not surprisingly, short on clever answers. Its manifesto called for political parties to “Strengthen the role of neighbourhood plans within the planning system where advanced community-led proposals conflict with developer-led proposals that fail to meet local needs. Require ‘change of use’ permission for new second homes in rural and coastal areas where there is a shortage of local housing and a high density of second homes.”

Who could be against such a sensible suggestion? Unfortunately politicians are a good example of clever people who are often surprisingly ignorant. Margaret Thatcher once told me that Cornwall was “an ice cream county” and seemed genuinely astonished when I gently suggested that schools, hospitals and houses might also be a good thing.

On another occasion, I found myself (accidentally) invited to a party at Rock, by friends of the then-Chancellor Kenneth Clarke. “And where do you live?” I was asked. “St Mabyn,” I replied. “No, where do you really live?” insisted the hostess, astonished that anyone actually lived in the area all year round. I felt like a refugee in my own country.

Next Wednesday the courts will pass judgement on an attempt by people in St Ives to take control of the situation themselves. More than 83 per cent of St Ives voters backed a plan to restrict the growth of new second homes – to the fury of estate agents and property developers, who also tend to lobby at party conferences. The St Ives case has implications for the whole country, and Cornwall in particular. It is a shame that our fragile democracy now has to hang on the threads of a ridiculously expensive Judicial Review.

Sam Allardyce - the only England manager ever with 100% record

2016-09-28T17:19:00.000+01:00

Bee-ware the Asian hornet

2016-09-28T13:36:00.000+01:00

I am constantly surprised by how often science fiction is outdone by science fact. Up in the orchard, now that autumn is officially here, the bees appear to be slowing down. They still buzz in and out of their hive, but I detect a sense that they are getting ready for a rest.

They appear completely oblivious to this week’s news that a foreign invader is, at this very moment, plotting their destruction. And if we lose the bees we lose pollination of crops, with dire implications for our own food supply. So this really matters. The Asian hornet has finally arrived in Britain.

Northern winters are thought to be too cold for the Asian hornet, but the milder climate of Cornwall is considerably more benign. The insects, which reached the Channel Islands earlier this year, are now thought to have reached Gloucestershire in packing crates. While they are essentially just a big wasp, and pose no direct threat to humans, they have a nasty habit of hanging around bee hives and biting the heads off honey bees.

As Albert Einstein is reported to have said: “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”

I did say that this sounds like science fiction, but it really is science fact. That is why Defra has established a three-mile surveillance zone around the site in Gloucester where just two Asian hornets were found (one of them was already dead.) The scientists are using infrared cameras and traps to find any nests. If any are found, then disposal experts will kill the hornets and destroy them. More scientists in Yorkshire are investigating the DNA of the Gloucester insects to learn more about how they got here.

And as if all this science wasn’t scary enough, some honey bees have a natural defence to the Asian hornet: they form a mass around the hornet, sacrificing themselves, but raising its temperature to a lethal 45C. Apparently honey bees in Britain have yet to learn this “heat-balling” technique and so their prospects for survival are not good.

On behalf of my bees, I am naturally very concerned. But short of camping outside of their hive, armed with a can of insect repellent, I am really not sure what I can do. Extra vigilance, I suppose. Apparently this is what I should be looking out for:

The Asian hornet (Vespa velutina) queens are up to 3 cm in length; workers up to 25 mm (slightly smaller than the native European hornet Vespa crabro)
They are entirely dark brown or black velvety body, bordered with a fine yellow band
They have only one band on the abdomen: 4th abdominal segment almost entirely yellow/orange
Their legs are brown with yellow ends
They have black heads with an orange-yellow face
Unlike European hornets, the Asian hornet flies about during the day but ceases activity at dusk.

If you think you have seen an Asian hornet, please take a picture and email it with details of where you saw it to alertnonnative@ceh.ac.uk.

In the long, hot summer of 1976, I joined the NUJ

2016-09-22T17:14:00.000+01:00

Not for sale

2016-09-21T13:45:00.000+01:00

Among the many things they get up to at County Hall, one operation which I can unhesitatingly single out for praise (yes, you did read that correctly) is the continued existence of the county farms estate.

Not a lot of people know this, but Cornwall Council is one of the county’s biggest farmers. Against all the economic odds of slash-and-burn privatisations, which have seen almost everything from dustbin collection to leisure centres “outsourced” in some form, the 11,182-acre estate is still in public ownership and continues to provide a gateway into agriculture for more than 100 farmers.

A typical “entry-level” farm will probably be 70-120 acres and would require the tenant to have some other form of income, as survival exclusively on such a small holding is rather improbable. There are then “progression” farms which can be anything over 150 acres, and might well come with a milk quota of up to 400,000 litres.

Most of these farms have a house and outbuildings as part of the package: ideal for a young family. For the past 21 years, all holdings have been let on fixed-term business tenancies. Before 1995 the tenancies could be passed down through families.

These farms have a fascinating history. They were established across the whole country in the 1890s to offer opportunities for young people to get started in farming. Concern about food security during the First World War, and a desire to provide work for returning soldiers, boosted their fortunes. By 1926 nearly half a million acres were farmed this way, employing nearly 30,000 farmers. The importance of these publicly-owned farms was recognised afresh in 1947.

Unfortunately, as with so many things, the 1970s brought major changes. The 1970 Agriculture Act declared that small farms were not sufficiently profitable, and demanded consolidation – fewer, but bigger farms – and Whitehall also began to demand that local councils should get out of the game completely.

A few years ago Somerset County Council embarked on a controversial campaign to flog off about two thirds of all its farms. Gloucestershire County Council followed, tempted by the prospect of £125 million in capital receipts.

Since 1964, the acreage of council farms estates across England and Wales has shrunk by nearly 40%. Combined with consolidation, the number of holdings fell by nearly 80%. No wonder there are so few farmers under the age of 30.

But it’s not the same story everywhere, as some councils managed to find ways to defy the privatising instincts of the Thatcher-Blair eras. Cambridgeshire County Council is one of the most enthusiastic farming councils in Britain, with more than 200 tenant farmers across nearly 30,000 acres. As a capital asset, that estate is worth a bob or two – but it’s also a nice little earner, generating about £4million a year.

According to the most recent report to Parliament, council farms in England and Wales made a net profit last year of more than £10 million, every penny helping to provide public services. That’s money which would otherwise have had to have been raised from council taxes.

Given that Cornwall Council and its predecessors have reputations which suggests they would sometimes rather hold a car boot sale than provide public services, it is very pleasant to report that the county farms estate continues to play a significant role in our rural life.

My Blue Remembered Hills

2016-09-14T13:58:00.000+01:00

Lots of clever people with much better qualifications than me have written about the importance of landscape to memory. All I can say is that I agree with them.

Last weekend, I found myself re-visiting a place where I spent much of my childhood, more than half a century ago.

This is the village of Hambleden, Buckinghamshire, which I was surprised to note has not changed one bit since I was last there in 1964.

For a few minutes, as I stood next to the brook where I used to play, I was once again eight years old. The meadow, the surrounding tree line, the narrow country lane, the stone and flint cottages – all were exactly as I last saw them. The only thing which had changed was me: no longer did it seem appropriate for me to build a dam across the brook, or to wander off into the woods with my home-made bow and arrow, to fight imaginary battles in which I would always triumph.

Those woods are my Blue Remembered Hills. It is not possible to exaggerate their impact on my formative years.

Hambleden is without doubt one of the prettiest villages in Britain. It is often used as a film location. When people think of a typical rural idyll, it must be somewhere like Hambleden they have in mind: not just a set of co-ordinates in space, but also in time.

There has been no new development in Hambleden since the end of the second World War. Any observer from another planet would note that the only discernible change is the increase in the number of cars. I slowly came to my senses and pondered how many villages in Cornwall would be able to say the same. Most see more change in 52 weeks than Hambleden has seen in 52 years.

Looking for any locals who might be able to offer an explanation, I realised that there have actually been some changes to Hambleden. It was very quiet for a Saturday morning in August. If there are any children in the village, they were unusually quiet. In fact, I struggled to find anyone younger than me.

The friendly people who now occupy the houses I used to visit explained that the entire Hambleden estate is now owned by a Swiss financier, one of the wealthiest men in the world and a polo-playing friend of Prince Charles. In the 1950s and 60s of my childhood, the owner had been Lord Hambleden, the then owner of newsagent chain W.H. Smith (my uncle had been his gardener.)

The Hambledens had done a deal with the National Trust, covenanting to the Trust power to act as a brake on development – even down to the kind of windows locals can use when they need to repair their homes.

The Hambleden butcher’s shop has not been used as a butcher’s shop for decades, but local planning rules mean the shop sign could not be removed. This won’t matter too much to the Swiss financier, for whom the village offers significant revenues in rents, agricultural subsidies and the possibility of advantageous tax arrangements.

But is Hambleden still a working, functional community? Is it even possible for anywhere in rural Britain to maintain that traditional social and economic fabric? In Hambleden, the definition of “affordable housing” is governed entirely by tenancy agreements (and by all accounts, the Swiss financier is a reasonable landlord.)

In Cornwall, one of the main arguments used to justify development is that without it, rural communities will die. In theory the argument is not without some merit, but in practice seems only to delay the inevitable – while scarring the landscape with bungalows, as our villages become gated communities for wealthy retirees.

The closest example to Hambleden that I can think of in Cornwall would be St Michael’s Mount: hardly a sustainable model for every village.

We seem to be confronted with a choice between two evils: do we surrender to the sort of landscape which no-one will want to remember, or do we condemn rural communities to become decaying film extras in some kind of living museum? I’m glad I’m not a planner.