Trevor Bevins, Local Democracy Reporter.
A campaining group say the need to protect Dorset today is as urgent as it was a century ago.
The audience at an event in Milton Abbey to mark 100 years of the Campaign to Protect Rural England was told that today’s challenges might be different – but remain just as pressing.
The meeting was held as Dorset Council sets out on the next phase of its Local Plan for the county, a process which has been delayed and altered over a couple of years.
Dorset Council leader Cllr Nick Ireland told the meeting that the authority remained committed to protecting the county’s countryside and wildlife as best it could but often faced difficult decisions over conflicting needs.
He said the countryside debate was often framed as being between protection and progress: “The real challenge is how you achieve both – how do we protect landscapes, restore nature and support farming while also providing homes, jobs, infrastructure and clean energy,?” he said.
Cllr Ireland said that Dorset Council started from the principle that nature was one of the county’s greatest assets, underpinning residents’ quality of life and the visitor economy: “A thriving countryside is about people as well as landscapes. One of the greatest challenges is that too many of our young people feel they have to leave to have affordable homes or employment opportunities,” he said.
The Dorset CPRE President, former war reporter Kate Adie, praised local CPRE members for their work in holding those in power to account saying that local groups had clocked up a number of successes over the years – but warned that they needed to continue to be vigilant.
She said that the message of a hundred years ago about the need for the right type of development still held good.
“A hundred years later the threats to the countryside are slightly different. We still have to be active and alert and not just let that change roll over you… we still have got to fight; we have still got to worry about the countryside,” she said.
A similar message came from the national President of the organisation, Mary-Ann Ochota who said that recent polling suggested that the majority of people, whatever their age and background, believed that more protection was needed for the countryside. She said CPRE was uniquely placed to find a way forward through consensus and the democratic process, including influencing policy, rather than head-to-head conflict.
“It’s about being smart, being brave and being committed to a long-term positive future for our countryside… we’ve got a lot of work to do,” she said.
Dorset CPRE farming advisor George Hosford, a former NFU county chairman, warned of the on-going threats to the countryside and agriculture, including climate change, government and and planning policies.
