Last nights Panorama program on Supermarket domination did not focus, as so many other media reports have, on simply the taste, price and animal welfare aspects of supply and demand together with our unsuppressed appetite for supermarkets; but contained a lot of information with regards the actual damage this domination is causing on the countryside, and those who maintain the countryside and the landscape in general.
Yet again planners are on the frontline of decisions which have major adverse effects on our landscape. The 'planning gains' which are so quickly jumped upon in times of recession from large scale retailers to help alleviate costs to the local council are nothing more than social bribes and take little account of the myriad of issues, often raised within Environmental Impact Assessments. The reality is that identified risks to our landscape are simply ignored.
These threats amalgamate with all other risks facing our landscape from other development and agricultural practice, (which is intrinsically linked to the supermarkets control) and add up to make a bleak future for the internationally important and financially high value UK landscape - in terms of the loss in amenity value, tourism, and production as a result of expanding the glass and breeze block into the countryside as well as the townscape.
The plethora of NGO's, Quangos, initiatives and schemes, existing to protect the landscape and countryside simply create a huge cloud of partnerships and small scale progress which has been proved to be completely ineffectual in actually halting the demise of the UK landscape and natural habitats contained within it. It is a wall that cannot be breached and since the change in the last government any new hopes can be dashed when all new academic studies and research are simply included into this bureaucracy leading to further slowdown.
The UK is rapidly sliding down the global lists and statistics in terms of environmental, ecological and conservation measures. Yet per head of population it contains more people involved in this field than any other country.
Planning needs to stand up to the responsibility it has at the frontline. The landscape should be at the epicentre of all decision making. Paul Selman the sustainable landscape academic argues that in the future this will be the case - Landscape as an integrated framework for Rural Policy and Planning - however as last nights program showed this is far from being the case at present.
Yet there is good news and comes by way of some very bad news. Frozen Britain has forced us to alter our normal life dramatically. It has forced us to look locally - the difficulties in getting access to our basic needs has been highlighted in a manner that is causing serious problems to many but ultimately rewarding. The 'centres of excellence' - Schools, GP surgeries etc., are impossible to reach at the times they are needed. International travel is thwarted, together with that quick sojourn to the supermarket or out of town shopping mall. We need local services and local food supply to survive.
The population is discovering the benefits and quality of the local village shop, together with the attributes of having a local land management practitioner, or farmer. Local farm shops are reporting a surge in business - aided by the fact that the farm machinery allows for ensuring routes to such places are passable.
The British pride themselves and with good reason in their resilience in the face of adversary. WWII proved this attribute to the world and now new generations can revel in this attribute and discover the huge benefits of a more localised society.
The much quoted 'loss' to the UK economy because of the snow is in reality simply redistributed into smaller businesses and those that have been able to survive despite the domination of Supermarkets, which have even started to encroach into the markets of the land based practitioner. As taxes from such businesses reach government it will be claimed that 'Big Society' is a success. But this success is due to the climate.
Together with a rediscovering of our landscape by way of its winter beauty, this enforced re evaluation can be seen as not just positive but the tipping point in future sustainable and local lifestyles and an empowerment to small established businesses. Until such time as Tesco's construct an umbrella over the whole of the British Isles.
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