The local geographies of poverty: a rural case-study

Geoforum 35 (2004) 559–575 www.elsevier.com/locate/geoforum

The local geographies of poverty: a rural case-study Paul Milbourne School of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3WA, UK Received 13 November 2002; received in revised form 18 November 2003

Abstract Recent years have witnessed a renewed interest in the spaces of poverty in Britain. An increasing number of geographers have placed poverty back Ôon the map’ by pointing to its complex spatial manifestations. In addition, the increased importance attached to the concept of social exclusion within UK social welfare discourse has led to social policy researchers thinking more critically about the broader social and spatial contexts of poverty and, consequently, new connections between poverty and space have been identified. However, within these new spatialised accounts of poverty in Britain, scant attention has been given to the local geographies of poverty. In fact, relatively little is known about the complex connections between poverty and place, and, more specifically, the ways that poverty is associated with different material forms, representations and experiences in particular local contexts. This paper develops these kinds of connection between poverty and place through an exploration of the local geographies of rural poverty in South-west England. Based on an analysis of local poverty data, in-depth interviews with a broad range of key agencies and a case-study of poverty in a particular village, the research highlights the complex socio-spatial nature of poverty, the different spatial scales and visibilities of poverty, and important connections between poverty and the shifting social composition of local space. Ó 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Poverty; Place; Local geographies; Rural; England

1. Introduction Above all the journey would focus on people, especially young people, to hear their own stories and the accounts of their communities and how their lives have been affected at an intimate, personal level by the legacy of Thatcherism and the changing cultural, deindustrialized landscape with its new unasked-for leisure. (Danziger, 1996, p. 2) The journey referred to above was undertaken in 1994 by the travel writer and photographer Nick Danziger. Involving in-depth studies of different places, Danziger’s journey aimed to encounter and record––in words and pictures––the experiences of poverty in contemporary Britain. The resulting book provides one of the most challenging and moving commentaries on people’s Ôlives on the edge’ and their attempts to cope with precarious living situations. It also informs the

E-mail address: milbournep@cardiff.ac.uk (P. Milbourne). 0016-7185/$ - see front matter Ó 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2003.11.005

reader much about the geographies of poverty in Britain. Danziger’s journey takes him to places of obvious poverty associated with Britain’s larger towns and cities, such as London, Glasgow, Newcastle and Salford, but also to the more hidden spaces of poverty in rural areas, such as the Highlands of Scotland, Suffolk and Cornwall. By drawing on life stories from such different places, Danziger is able to highlight some important commonalities associated with people’s experiences of poverty in different parts of Britain. His detailed accounts of people’s lives in particular places also indicate interesting local geographies of poverty and, in particular, important connections between poverty, local space and place. It is somewhat surprising then that Danziger’s work has not featured in recent reviews of geographical research on poverty and welfare in the UK (for example, Philo, 2000a; Mohan, 2000). It is more surprising, and perhaps more worrying, that this book stands virtually alone in highlighting how the nature and experiences of poverty come together in different ways in different places in the UK. It is true that historical studies can be

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pointed to that have provided detailed accounts of poverty in particular places, such as London (Booth, 1889), York (Rowntree, 1901) and Nottingham (Coates and Silburn, 1970), but such approaches have been largely absent within recent work on poverty. The key poverty texts have focused largely on the social components of poverty through analyses of headline national statistics, with relatively little attention given to the spatial characteristics of poverty. For example, one of the first major reports on the state of poverty in New Labour’s Britain, by Howarth et al. (1998), provides only a one-page appendix on spatial concentrations of poverty in a report that totals 186 pages (see also Alcock, 1997). Turning to the contribution made by human geographers, it is clear that poverty has remained largely Ôoff the agenda’ over the last 10 years or so, as new currents of enquiry have placed more emphasis on the cultural than the social. In addition, the small number of geographical accounts of poverty that have been provided have rarely investigated the placebased nature of poverty. The intention of this paper is to provide a place-based investigation of poverty. It does this in two main ways. Firstly, the paper sets out a broad and critical discussion of geographical approaches to poverty in Britain over the last couple of decades. It begins by highlighting some key factors that have led to poverty being largely neglected within human geography, before discussing how the spaces of poverty have, over recent years, begun to be taken more seriously by researchers working within human geography and social policy. However, this section of the paper finishes in more negative terms, by pointing to the ways that recent writings on the geographies of poverty have been preoccupied with mapping spatial variations in levels and types of poverty, with relatively little attention paid to place-based understandings of poverty. In the second part of the paper, such place-based approaches to poverty are examined in greater depth in relation to the rural spaces of Wiltshire, a county located in the South-west region of England. Here, the local geographies of poverty are explored in three main ways: firstly, local policy discourses of poverty in the county are examined; secondly, statistics relating to welfare benefit receipt are utilised to provided a detailed analysis of the local spaces of poverty within the county, and; thirdly, in-depth material relating to poverty in a particular village space is drawn on to explore the complex local geographies of poverty.

2. Re-examining the geographies of poverty in britain Several years have now elapsed since Andrew Leyshon (1995) used the absence of the term Ôpoverty’ from the third edition of The Dictionary of Human Geography (DHG) to highlight the general neglect of poverty re-

search within geography. From forming a prominent component of radical forms of geography in the 1970s and 1980s, Leyshon highlights how the decade of the 1990s witnessed a dramatic fall-off in work by geographers on poverty and more general welfare issues. For Leyshon, a key factor behind this demise in geographical research on poverty was the strong hold that cultural studies had on geography, which, he suggests, had resulted in critical attention being diverted from the geographies of social injustice and inequality towards those concerned with cultural difference and identity politics. With the tightening of this cultural grip over the 1990s, Leyshon was rather pessimistic about the (future) position of poverty within geography, suggesting that without renewed research attention, Ôthe geography of economic exploitation and of poverty will become even more of a marginal concern than it already is’ (1024). While Leyshon’s critique of the impoverished state of geography and the neglected geographies of poverty was extremely important and timely, his assessment of the future of welfare geography may have been a little pessimistic. The period since the mid-1990s has been one that has witnessed an increased interest in the geographies of poverty in Britain, both from geographers and from those positioned in other areas of the social sciences. Perhaps one barometer of this more optimistic reading of the state of poverty research in human geography is the DHG, which in its fourth edition, published in 2000, included poverty as a key term/theme (Philo, 2000a). In addition, shortly after Leyshon’s (1995) critique was published, an important edited text on the geography of poverty appeared (Philo, 1995) which presented accounts of poverty in different parts of the UK. Three factors can be identified which, together, have led to the geographies of poverty being taken more seriously in the period since Leyshon’s editorial. The first factor concerns cultural developments within welfare geography and welfare studies more generally; the second relates to shifting central government welfare agendas; and the third factor concerns the increased importance attached to the concept of social exclusion within social policy discourse. Each of these factors will now be discussed in turn. 2.1. New cultures of poverty While Leyshon was right to point to the negative impacts that any prioritisation of the cultural over the social in geography would have on the development of welfare geography, the Ôcultural turn’ has proved less damaging for studies of poverty and welfare in geography than anticipated on three main grounds. First, certain influential commentators positioned within cultural geography (for example, Philo, 2000b and Jackson, 2000) have called for the need to incorporate more

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material and social influences into cultural geographical approaches in an effort to bring a greater relevance to this area of geography. These arguments also connect with Mitchell’s (2000) recent call for the adoption of more critical approaches to cultural geography that are better able to make sense of the political economies of culture. Such re-positionings may well open up new and more critical socio-cultural spaces for the study of the geographies of poverty in Britain; providing more sensitive accounts of the socio-cultural natures of poverty in particular spaces and places, and fusing together analyses of social structures, cultural processes, power, identity, and difference. Second, it is possible to point to a small number of recent geographical studies of social welfare issues that have usefully incorporated key cultural ideas and associated methodologies into their research strategies. One example is that of research on homelessness where attempts to set out the social and material components of homelessness have been enriched by efforts to make sense of dominant representations of homelessness and the ways that homelessness is experienced differently by different groups and individuals. This work has focused on the processes through which socio-cultural constructions of homelessness have become associated with particular forms of (urban) space, the material circumstances of different fractions of the homeless population, the uneven distribution of homeless services across space, and the coping strategies employed by homeless people to deal with their situations (see, for example, Ruddick, 1996; Veness, 1994; Cloke et al., 2000). Importantly, these studies have placed the narratives of homeless people centrally within their research strategies. A third factor relates to recent work on poverty undertaken within the more developed and dominant Ôsocial poverty’ literature. Here, it is also possible to point to individual studies that have attempted to move away from dominant policy and academic definitions of poverty, and examine how poor people themselves make sense of their own situations (see Beresford et al., 1999). In addition, a developing body of literature has emerged on post-modern approaches to welfare and welfare states. Again, a shift can be identified away from previously dominant normative readings of welfare to an increasing recognition of the multiple Ôworlds of welfare’ (see Leonard, 1997; Pinch, 1997; Pierson, 1998; Cochrane, 1994), with particular attention given to the breakdown of national states of welfare, the rise of new local systems of welfare delivery, and the differentiated needs and experiences of welfare recipients. 2.2. New policy spaces of poverty A second factor behind this renewed interest in the geographies of poverty is located beyond the boundaries

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of academic geography and concerns the shifting political and policy contexts of poverty within Britain. The change of UK government in 1997 brought to an end 18 years of right-of-centre administrations which had attempted to restructure/dismantle the welfare state and de-politicise poverty issues in Britain. Poverty and antipoverty policies were de-prioritised within policy discourses which emphasised the creation of increased wealth. The term Ôpoverty’ was effectively denied any form of legitimacy; it was excluded from official policy documents and the existence of poverty in Britain was denied by particular ministers (Moore, 1989). The refusal of successive governments to sign up to definitions of poverty agreed by the European Commission and many UK anti-poverty groups also meant that comparable official statistics on poverty were severely restricted and local surrogate statistics on poverty, such as those relating to unemployment levels, were altered so much that they became almost meaningless. Consequently, the 1979–1997 period proved to be a frustrating one for geographers interested in poverty and welfare issues. There was little constructive dialogue between government and academic researchers, and a distinct lack of official geographical data on poverty. Indeed, at the end of this period, a major report on the state of poverty in Britain (Howarth et al., 1998) states that, Ôthere is a marked lack of suitable data relating to the concentration of disadvantage. . .regular, nationally comparable data on local conditions are in short supply’ (14). However, the welfare policies of the Conservative governments did produce some critical responses from geographers. Analyses of surrogate indicators of poverty revealed not only growing social inequalities between rich and poor but also increasing spatial divisions between the South-east and other regions of Britain (see Johnston et al., 1989; Martin, 1988; Lewis and Townsend, 1989). Visible social problems and conflicts in some of Britain’s major cities also resulted in increased attention from geographers on poverty in the city (see Herbert and Smith, 1989; Byrne, 1989), while research was also focused on the spatial impacts of shifting welfare policies (Curtis, 1989). The election of the New Labour Government in 1997, and its subsequent re-election in 2001, created new political and policy spaces for poverty, as well as new social science poverty agendas. The New Labour Government recognised and adopted an official definition of poverty, based on the number of households living below half average incomes. It has also introduced a suite of policies aimed at reducing overall levels of poverty, for example, the minimum wage and new working tax credits, and concerned with lifting particular social groups out of persistent poverty, including children, young people, rough sleepers, single parents and the elderly. While this new policy context has not been without its critics, it is clear that New Labour’s

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approach to poverty has resulted in more constructive dialogue between government and poverty researchers. Three main areas of dialogue can be identified. The first has involved new programmes of governmentcommissioned research on poverty-related issues which have made use of academic Ôexperts’ and researchers. A second area of dialogue has been the critique of New Labour’s approach to poverty by academics (see, for example, Howarth et al., 1998; Levitas, 1998). Thirdly, the New Labour administrations have compiled and published an increased and better quality supply of statistical information on poverty in the UK. While many of these new data sets have been focused on the social components of poverty at the national spatial scale, local statistics on poverty have also been produced. It is this latter type of poverty data that has introduced new opportunities to examine the geographies of poverty in the UK. Although welfare geographers have been able to make limited use of local surrogate indicators of poverty provided by the decennial Censuses of Population, 1 over the last three years central government has published new sets of local indicators of poverty, based on the receipt of state benefits that are available to low-income households. These new statistics have allowed for more meaningful assessments of the local geographies of poverty within Britain. 2.3. New spaces of social exclusion A third factor relates to the growing importance of ideas of social exclusion within social policy discourse in the UK. Over the 1990s, the concept of social exclusion began to be taken more seriously by welfare researchers and central government in the UK. While social exclusion has been awarded a range of meanings within academic and policy discourse (see Byrne, 1999; Levitas, 1996), it is generally agreed that the concept provides a broader and more critical means of understanding social problems relating to poverty. Rather than focusing on poverty as the main outcome of social exclusion, the social exclusion approach considers poverty within a broader social context, positioning poverty alongside a range of other social factors/processes. Poverty becomes reconceptualised as a form of financial exclusion which sits alongside other forms of exclusion relating to labour markets, housing systems, essential service provision, social relations, and so on. This broadened social approach to poverty resembles previous attempts to define poverty in relative terms (see Townsend, 1979). However, the social exclusion approach goes much further by

considering the societal structures and processes that result in situations of poverty and social exclusion, and by focusing on the dynamic nature of poverty and social exclusion. It is this breadth and complexity that makes social exclusion such a powerful analytical tool for understanding poverty; this breadth and complexity, though, also makes the concept difficult to operationalise and measure (see Burchardt et al., 1999; PercySmith, 2000; Gordon et al., 2000). In addition to providing a broader social context for understanding poverty, the concept of social exclusion offers new connections between poverty and space. The main way that it does this is by placing an increased emphasis on the broader spatial context of poverty. One of the key criticisms of poverty research has been that it adopts an individualistic approach, and so tends to neglect the position of individuals not only within a wider social context but also within a broader spatial context. The social exclusion approach, by contrast, adopts a much broader socio-spatial focus, placing a great deal of emphasis on the local community context within which poverty occurs. It is suggested that experiences of poverty are bound up with a range of individual, social and spatial factors, with the transition from poverty to social exclusion very much dependent on the presence or otherwise of key components of social/welfare infrastructure in local space. As Room (1995) comments: The vulnerability of an individual or household to social exclusion depends in part on the local community resources on which that individual or household can draw. . .Deprivation is caused not only by lack of personal resources but also insufficient or unsatisfactory community facilities, such as dilapidated schools, remotely sited shops, poor public transport networks and so on; indeed, such an environment tends to reinforce and perpetuate household poverty. (p. 238) This broadened spatial approach to poverty has led to the local geographies of poverty being taken more seriously by social policy researchers, as increased attention has been given to how the nature of local space/place impacts on the experiences of poverty and social exclusion. Such an approach also connects with key ideas of welfare geography concerning the different spatial scales of social justice and welfare (Smith, 1977, 1994), territorial indicators of social well-being and spatial inequalities associated with the provision and shifting governance of welfare services (see Pinch, 1997; Cochrane, 1994; Cloke et al., 2001). 2.4. Towards new local geographies of poverty

1

Unlike in the US, the UK National Office of Statistics does not collect income data from the Census of Population.

In combination, then, these three factors have opened up new ways of approaching the local geographies of

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poverty, incorporating socio-cultural accounts of poverty, new local statistics on quality-of-life indicators, and broader socio-spatial perspectives on poverty. These factors have also increased the volume of research and writing on the geographies of poverty in Britain in the period since the mid-1990s. Unfortunately, much of this recent work has only gone so far in teasing out the complex connections between poverty, social exclusion and local space, as geographical accounts of poverty have either been restricted to particular types of local space or have been preoccupied with mapping new indicators of poverty. Within recent geographical work on poverty, the city has retained its privileged position as a case-study space within which to study the shifting nature of poverty and social exclusion. Attention has been given to the changing spatial distributions of poverty and poor groups within areas of the city, the increased visibility of Ônew’ forms of poverty, such as homelessness and youth poverty, the gentrification and Ôpurification’ of particular spaces within the city, and the life experiences of different disadvantaged groups in urban spaces (see recent edited collections by Madanipour et al., 1998; Mingione, 1996; Room, 1995). This body of literature has done much to highlight what Madanipour (1998) calls the Ôsocio-spatial geometry of difference and segregation within cities’ (83). Implicit within this work, however, is a potentially dangerous assumption about the spatialities of poverty in Britain; that the city represents some kind of exclusive laboratory for the study of poverty. For example, Yepez de Castillo (1994) suggests that the city space Ôprovides a visible, spatial embodiment of the cleavages of a dual society’. However, as Cloke et al. (2000) and Milbourne (1997) argue, locating case-studies in the most visible spaces of poverty runs the risk of downplaying the significance of poverty in other types of space, most notably rural areas. Perhaps the bulk of recent geographical work on poverty, though, has focused on the production of new maps of poverty in contemporary Britain. Tapping into newly published government local statistics on benefitrelated poverty, geographers have moved beyond the rather static Census maps of local quality-of-life indicators (see Gordon and Forrest, 1995) to explore the shifting geographies of poverty at different spatial scales. Recent analyses of these new data sources have attempted to present more accurate and finely-tuned maps of poverty and to connect poverty with other indicators of social exclusion. Dorling and Simpson (2001), for example, have examined the geography of benefit poverty in England by parliamentary constituency in an attempt to explore how the geography of poverty has been affected by the early policies of the New Labour Government. Their study indicates that while the overall level of benefit-related poverty in Britain fell between

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1996–1998, Ôthere appears to be a widening gap between rich and poor areas during the first two years of Labour’s first term’ (87). Similarly, a study based on newly published benefit data by Bramley et al. (2000) has provided new accounts of the geographies of benefit poverty in Scotland, some of which contradict those provided by the 1991 Census of Population. Others, such as Dunn et al. (1998), have sought to construct new bundles of indicators of disadvantage which combine published data on low-income, poverty and other aspects of social exclusion at the local level. These statistical analyses have provided valuable accounts of the new spaces of poverty in Britain. However, it can be argued that they have adopted rather simplistic approaches to place-based poverty. In an important recent paper, Powell et al. (2001) suggest that these new geographical analyses of poverty are based on ideas of people-based poverty, in which groups and individuals are positioned in particular spaces by virtue of their lowincome. What these analyses do not provide, they claim, is any place-based approach to poverty, which is capable of making connections between poverty, people and place. For Powell et al., such a place-based approach to poverty is concerned with Ô. . .multi- rather than unidimensional indicators of disadvantage, places the individual in a wider context and is located within a clearer framework of the role of the welfare state’. It is this broader place-based approach to poverty that I want to develop within this paper. I do this by focusing on what I term the Ôlocal geographies of poverty’. In the remaining parts of this section, I explain what I mean by this term and then set out how I intend to go about examining these local geographies of poverty through a particular case-study in rural England. In the introduction to an important book on the geographies of poverty in the UK, McCormick and Philo (1995) provide a useful place-based perspective on poverty, bringing together important ideas concerning uneven development, spatial divisions of labour and the Ôlocalities school’ to demonstrate Ôhow particular sets of factors––usually categorised in some way as Ôeconomic’, Ôpolitical’, Ôsocial’ and Ôcultural’––spin together in specific ways to produce the outcome which is certain forms of poverty for certain people in certain places’ (6). It is these Ôcomings together’ of specific mixes of factors within particular spaces that I define as the local geographies of poverty. More specifically, the local geographies of poverty are concerned with the productions, representations, materialities and experiences of poverty in particular spaces, as well as the specific mixes of welfare facilities and welfare policy contexts in these spaces. They involve an appreciation of broader processes and structures that produce particular forms of poverty amongst particular groups in particular places, together with an understanding of the complex assemblages of social, economic, political and cultural factors

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that interact with poverty within these places. As such, this local geographies of poverty approach clearly connects with perspectives drawn from locality studies (see Cooke, 1989) and more specific ideas of Ômicro-structuralism’ (Cochrane, 1993) that were important within human geography within the late 1980s. The local geographies of poverty approach then is broad in spatial and social terms. It is concerned to provide a detailed examination of the complex spatialities of poverty in different places; involving a finer grained spatial analysis of poverty and an understanding of the connections between poverty, people and place. It involves a focus on poor, non-poor and so-called Ôelite’ groups within society, and a concern with positioning poor individuals within their wider social and spatial contexts. In the second substantial section of the paper, this local geographies of poverty approach is operationalised within the context of a particular case-study space in England. The case-study selected is the largely rural county of Wiltshire which is located in South-west England. The second section of the paper draws on recent research conducted by the author on rural poverty in Wiltshire which has brought together statistical and qualitative assessments poverty. In particular, the research mapped out the local spaces of poverty in the county using a range of local statistical indicators; explored local policy discourses of poverty through semistructured interviews with welfare agencies in the county; 2 and examined the local geographies of rural poverty through a household survey and key actor interviews in one particular village––Patbourne 3––in the county. 4

3. Exploring the local geographies of poverty: a rural case-study 3.1. The socio-spatial context of rural poverty in Wiltshire At first sight, Wiltshire does not appear to be a space of Ôobvious poverty’. Many of its towns and villages are situated within daily commuting distance of Bristol, Bath, Swindon, Reading and London, and official statistics paint Wiltshire as a fairly affluent county that is 2

Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 30 welfare agencies in the county, covering statutory and voluntary organisations. 3 The name of the village has been changed to protect the anonymity of research subjects. Patbourne is located in north-east Wiltshire close to the towns of Marlborough and Devizes. The spaces around Patbourne are protected by an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty designation, which restricts new residential development to infill sites within the village. 4 The local research involved a survey of 125 households (approximately 20% of all households) and semi-structured interviews with representatives of 15 agencies, including the parish council, Women’s Institute, police, social services, church, and health service.

characterised by relatively little social exclusion. For example, the DETR Index of Local Deprivation indicates that the districts of Wiltshire are some of the least disadvantaged in England, 5 while the New Earnings Survey points to Wiltshire as one of the highest earning counties Britain. A key factor behind these relatively low levels of deprivation in the county has been the inmovement of new groups into its small town and village spaces over the last 10–15 years. The county’s resident population increased by more 35,000 persons (or 7%) over the 1980s, the 10th highest growth rate amongst all counties in Britain. Significant within this in-movement have been the middle-classes, and many parts of rural Wiltshire are being transformed into middle-class spaces (see Cloke et al., 1998; and Murdoch, 1995). In 1991, for example, 32% of all working residents in Wiltshire were engaged in professional and managerial employment, and a further 20% were intermediate non-manual workers. In relation to the study village of Patbourne, 40% of households in the survey had relocated to the parish over the last 10 years, of which 70% contained persons working in the service-sector and half were engaged in professional or managerial occupations. These middle-class movements to rural spaces also connect indirectly with issues of poverty and social exclusion. Findings from a recent study of population in-movement to five areas of the English and Welsh countryside 6 (Milbourne et al., 2001), for example, reveal two important motivations behind middle-class movements to rural areas. First, the attraction of rural space is that it is anti-urban; it is distanced––both physically and socially––from perceived social problematics associated with the city, including poverty, crime, drugs, and so on. In another sense, rural space is attributed a series of more positive features, linked to cleaner environments and lifestyles characterised by traditional, close knit, secure and problem free living. Rural space in Wiltshire has also become associated with an increasingly privatised mode of (exclusive) consumption over recent years. Linked to historically low levels of central and local state intervention (see Newby, 1986; Cloke et al., 2001), and compounded by recent rounds of deregulation and privatisation of key services (Bell and Cloke, 1991), much of rural space is characterised by a limited provision of essential public and private sector services. A recent survey of rural services in the county, undertaken for the Countryside Agency (2000), reveals that 50% of rural parishes in Wiltshire lack a post office, 56% a general store or shop, 5

The 1998 Index of Local Deprivation provides the following ranking of the four local authority areas in Wiltshire (1 signifies the most deprived area, 310 the lowest): Salisbury (222nd); New Forest (250th); Kennet (310th); North Wiltshire (310th). 6 One of which is in Wiltshire, the others being located in Devon, Norfolk, Cheshire and Powys.

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73% a general practitioner surgery, 73% a daily bus service, 91% a bank or building society, 90% a cash dispenser and 93% a community internet facility. In relation to welfare provision, it is clear that a range of services that have come to be taken for granted within the urban context are rarely present in rural space. A recent report produced by the Cabinet Office (2000) highlights that 93% of rural parishes are without a public nursery, 91% lack any day care provision for older people, and 96% of parishes do not possess any provision for people with disabilities. The supply of social housing is also more restricted in rural districts 7 and the local geographies of provision (and Right-toBuy sales) mean that many villages contain very little social accommodation (see Milbourne, 1998). For example, the social rental sector in Wiltshire accounts for 19% of all housing stock, 23% of stock in wards containing more than 3000 households, and 16% in those wards with populations of under 750 households. In addition, research by Cloke et al. (2000, 2001) in other rural counties in South-west England has indicated that rural areas are largely devoid of welfare services for homeless people, such as advice and drop-in centres, hostels and shelters. The general absence of key aspects of welfare provision from rural spaces in Wiltshire connects with poverty in two main ways. First, these privatised rural spaces are difficult to reside within for those groups which need to make use of public (welfare) services. In effect, the village becomes an exclusionary space that can only be accessed by higher income groups through the private market. Second, the privatised nature of these spaces, with their absence of welfare services and lowincome groups, represents a key advantage of residence for those service class in-movers moving away from urban problems and seeking out their Ôvoluntary ghettos’ (Bauman, 2001) in the countryside. While rural spaces of Wiltshire can be viewed as spaces of exclusive and privatised consumption, they are also heavily regulated by the state at central and local spatial scales. Since its introduction in the late 1940s, the town and country planning system has restricted the scale and nature of new residential development in rural areas. There has been a presumption against development in the spaces of the open countryside and a spatial manipulation of development in the rural built environment through the operation of key settlement policies. New housing has effectively been steered into the spaces of the town and larger village, with the result being that many smaller villages have been starved of residential development. While this form of spatial planning has been justified on economic, environmental

7

The mean level of social housing provision for England is 23% compared with only 15% for rural areas (Countryside Agency, 2000).

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and aesthetic grounds, it has acted to increase the protection offered to the smaller village in rural areas, and has produced a more exclusive form of local rural space which has satisfied the consumption needs of the middleclasses (see Ward, 1990; Sibley, 1995). Such a spatialised planning system is evident in the parts of Wiltshire within which the study village of Patbourne is located. The spaces around the village have been designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and so are protected from any further housing or economic development. More generally, the structure plan that deals with this area is based around the principle of Ômaintaining economic and housing growth in the main urban centres whilst balancing development and environmental protection in small towns and rural areas’. (Kennet District Council, 1991, p. 13). In terms of smaller settlements, additional residential development, in the form of Ôsmall groups of houses’, is focused on larger villages that contain such facilities as a foodshop, post office, primary school, and regular public transport service. For those villages that contain fewer facilities Ôonly very limited residential development within the physical limits of the village will normally be permitted.’ (p. 13) 3.2. The local spaces of rural poverty It is within this broader context of middle-class inmovement, limited state welfare provision and regulation of rural space that any understanding of rural poverty in Wiltshire needs to be positioned. There is little doubt that, in overall terms, Wiltshire represents a relatively middle-class and affluent space. However, aggregate official statistics, based on average levels of income and deprivation, also disguise the presence of poverty within the county. To highlight this poverty and also indicate its local geographies requires an analysis of alternative sets of statistics. In 1997, Wiltshire County Council commissioned an analysis of the local geographies of the receipt of low-income-based state benefits. Two sources of local government statistics were utilised in this analysis; one relating to Housing Benefit, the other to Council Tax Rebate. An important advantage of these data is that they not only capture those persons who are unemployed and claiming benefit but also those in receipt of benefit on account of their incomes falling below a certain threshold. This analysis reveals that a total of 48,335 residents in Wiltshire––11.5% of the county’s population––were living in households in which at least one person was in receipt of either of these two benefits in 1997. Of these residents in benefit households, 37% were over pensionable age, 10% were lone parents and 28% were dependent children. In relation to the local geographies of benefit poverty, three main points can be made. First, income-based poverty is widespread across Wiltshire. In

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Table 1 The top quintile of benefit parishes in Wiltshire Parish

1

2

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47

Chicklade Berwick St Leonard ishopstrow Netherhampton Hilperton Orcheston Knook West Knoyle Monkton Farleigh Horningsham Zeals Mere Leigh Hindon Rowde Tisbury Etchilhampton Fonthill Bishop Cornpton Chamberlayne Calne Trowbridge Fovant Donhead St Mary Salisbury Beechingstoke South Newton Fonthill Gifford Barford St Martin Devizes Compton Bassett East Kennett Corsham Melksham Westbury Potterne Stratford Toney Oaksey Burcombe Without Avebury Easton Grey Marlborough Mildenhall Heytesbury Wilton Yatton Keynell Dilton Marsh Bishopstone

48.6 32.4 28.2 25.9 25.0 22.5 22.4 22.2 20.6 19.3 18.9 18.5 18.1 18.0 17.7 17.5 17.2 17.0 16.7 16.6 16.1 16.0 15.7 15.5 15.5 15.5 15.5 15.4 15.3 15.3 15.2 15.1 15.1 15.1 15.0 14.9 14.8 14.7 14.5 14.3 14.1 14.1 14.1 14.0 13.9 13.9 13.7

36 11 31 42 711 67 13 37 98 77 129 439 54 94 235 345 30 19 14 2057 4196 110 158 6119 24 113 17 90 1783 42 16 1662 1968 1498 244 11 70 22 83 10 1014 69 90 550 97 275 82

3 74 34 110 162 2843 298 58 167 476 400 682 2379 298 523 1331 1970 174 112 84 12,388 26,042 686 1009 39,431 155 731 110 586 11,617 274 105 10,971 13,042 9951 1624 74 472 150 571 70 7168 488 640 3921 696 1978 597

4

5

23.0 0.0 16.4 5.6 16.3 12.4 6.9 10.8 13.0 9.3 6.6 8.6 13.1 8.0 7.1 8.3 8.0 5.4 10.7 10.1 10.3 7.0 6.2 8.2 7.1 5.5 3.6 8.4 8.7 12.4 13.3 8.4 8.0 8.2 6.2 13.5 5.1 2.7 7.5 1.4 7.8 8.8 5.9 6.7 7.2 7.9 4.0

25.7 32.4 11.8 20.4 8.7 10.1 15.5 11.4 7.6 10.0 12.3 9.9 5.0 9.9 10.6 9.2 9.2 11.6 6.0 6.6 5.8 9.0 9.4 73 8.4 10.0 11.8 7.0 6.7 2.9 1.9 6.7 7.0 6.8 8.9 1.4 9.7 12.0 7.0 12.9 6.4 5.3 8.1 7.3 6.8 6.0 9.7

6

7

8 x x x x

x

9

10

11

12

13

14

x

x

28.6 60.0 33.3 90.6 26.5 13.0 40.0 46.2 40.0 51.4 62.7 57.3 47.8 47.4 54.2 63.8 61.5 60.0 57.1 48.4 45.1 61.7 59.2 46.2 69.2 65.0 80.0 58.1 51.9 31.3 16.7 53.2 57.0 55.2 68.8 75.0 48.5 66.7 62.5 66.7 48.6 57.1 70.9 55.7 52.2 50.0 60.5

71.4 20.0 33.3 6.3 53.9 73.9 60.0 46.2 40.0 40.0 23.9 25.6 34.8 44.7 30.5 22.3 23.1 20.0 14.3 30.1 28.2 28.3 31.6 27.3 23.1 26.7 20.0 23.3 25.5 56.3 83.3 27.1 25.8 25.5 17.4 25.0 24.2 16.7 14.6 16.7 34.0 25.7 14.5 24.5 37.0 35.1 31.6

28.6 0.0 26.7 0.0 34.0 47.8 20.0 15.4 22.2 20.0 7.5 15.0 17.4 21.1 19.1 12.8 7.7 0.0 0.0 19.1 20.2 15.0 14.5 19.0 15.4 11.7 10.0 11.6 18.1 31.3 66.7 18.5 17.4 16.2 10.1 0.0 12.1 0.0 4.2 16.7 20.3 14.3 10.9 16.0 19.6 17.2 7.9

x x x

x x x x

x x x

x x x

x x x

x

x

x x x x x

x x x x x

x x x

x x

x x x x

x x

x x

x x x

x

x x x x

x x

x x x

x x

x x

x x

x x x

x

x x x x

x x x

x

x x

x x

x

x x x x

x x x

x x

x x x

x

x

x x x

x x x x

x

P. Milbourne / Geoforum 35 (2004) 559–575

Rank

Percentage of 1996 estimated population in HB/CTR units. Population in HB/CTR units. Estimated total population at April 1996. Population in Income Support related HB/CTR units as a percentage of 1996 estimated population. Population in non-Income Support related HB/CTR units as a percentage of 1996 estimated population. x ¼ in top quintile of Ôunemployment parishes’. x ¼ in top quintile of Ôno car ownership parishes’. x ¼ in top quintile of, Ôfree school meal parishes’. x ¼ in top quintile of Ôeconomically inactive parishes’. x ¼ in top quintile of Ôno central heating parishes’. x ¼ in top quintile of Ôlimiting long term illness parishes’. HB/CTR units containing at least one pensioner as a percentage of total HB/CTR units. HB/CTR units containing at least one dependent child aged 0–19 as a percentage of total HB/CTR units. HB/CTR units containing a lone parent. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

48 49 50 51 52

Stockton Swallowcliffe Durnlord Ebbesbourne Wake Stourton With Gasper

13.7 13.5 13.5 13.5 13.4

27 26 55 31 27

197 192 408 230 201

4.6 9.4 5.6 9.1 7.5

9.1 4.2 7.8 4.3 6.0

x x

x

x

x

x

x x x

x x

70.6 50.0 50.0 53.3 50.0

11.8 40.0 20.0 46.7 33.3

5.9 20.0 6.7 33.3 25.0

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fact, 99% of all parishes contained at least one person in receipt of one or both of these benefits. This widespread distribution of poverty is also evident in relation to different social groups. For example, poor pensioner households were present in 97% of parishes, lone parents in 81%, and dependent children in benefit households featured in 92% of parishes. A second point, and which follows from the first, is that benefit poverty is extremely dispersed, with relatively few spaces of concentration evident. For example, while 84% of parishes contained at least 5% of residents in receipt of benefit, only 13% recorded more than 10% in benefit households and just 5% of parishes had more than 20% in such households. Third, there is an interesting local geography associated with those parishes which record highest levels of benefit poverty. Table 1 and Fig. 1 highlight the top quintile of benefit parishes in Wiltshire, which account for 52% of all persons living in benefit households in Wiltshire. It is apparent from Table 1 that a significant proportion of these parishes are rural in nature, consisting of villages with relatively small populations. For example, 52% of Ôtop quintile’ parishes have resident populations of less than 500 people, 69% contain less than 1000 residents, and 85% of these parishes record populations of under 5000 people. Fig. 1 maps out the top quintile benefit parishes in Wiltshire. It is clear from this map that while the highest scoring benefit parishes are located in different parts of Wiltshire, there is a spatial concentration in the south-west of the county, with West Wiltshire district and the western area of Salisbury district accounting for 36 of these 52 parishes. 8 Two other features of poverty in these top quintile parishes are also apparent from Table 1. First, while elderly persons are the group most likely to be found in benefit households, different parishes are characterised by different mixes of benefit poor groups. A second feature is that many of these benefit parishes also score highly on other indicators of material disadvantage, including unemployment, non-car ownership, children in receipt of free-school meals, lack of central heating, and so on. Indeed, 44 of these 52 Ôbenefit parishes’ record high proportions 9 of their populations experiencing at least one of these aspects of material disadvantage, and 23 score highly on three or more of these indicators (see Table 1 and Fig. 1). One important implication of these local geographies of poverty is that poverty tends to remain hidden within the county. Poverty sits alongside, and in many ways is subsumed by, affluence in village Wiltshire, with the inmovement of service class groups into these spaces

8 This area is most distant from the major centres of service class employment, which are located to the north of Wiltshire. 9 Featuring in the top quintile of Wiltshire parishes.

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Fig. 1. The top quintile of benefit parishes and benefit plus parishes in Wiltshire.

compounding this situation. As several representatives of agencies dealing with poverty issues in the county commented, the socio-spatial nature of local poverty is complex:

Wiltshire appears very affluent and poverty is quite hidden. There may be a few streets in some towns in Wiltshire where it is visually apparent but on the whole it is not very visible. (Statutory agency, 2)

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The overriding issues are that there is absolute poverty for some people in Wiltshire, but there is relative poverty for people living in a sea of affluence. (Statutory agency, 6) What you have in Wiltshire––a very rural county–– is affluence sitting right next to desperate poverty. (Voluntary agency, 2) This co-existence of poverty and affluence also emerges from local research conducted in the village of Patbourne. Within the village there is a clear juxtaposition of low- and high-income households. The survey of households indicates that 15% of residents in employment are characterised by gross income levels of at least £50,000 per annum, while another 16% are earning less than £5000 per year. Expressed in terms of household incomes, 32% of households report net incomes. 10 of more than £20,000 per annum, while 10% are in receipt of an income-based state benefit. 11 However, when we examine the local geographies of high- and low-income households in this village a somewhat different spatial patterning emerges; one which is characterised by a clear spatial segregation of low- and high-income households. Almost all of the lowincome benefit households reside in a small estate of social housing situated away from the historical core of the village; most of the high-income in-movers are concentrated in a recently constructed development of exclusive detached housing located on the opposite side of the village centre; and the established middle-classes tend to occupy the historical village core. Two consequences of this spatial segregation of poor and non-poor households are immediately apparent. First, while poor households might be spatially concentrated, they are positioned within the peripheral or marginal spaces of the village, which has implications for the localised visibilities of poverty. For some key actors, the spatial concentration of poverty makes it an obvious and visible part of the village. As a local church worker commented, Ôyou have areas of Patbourne, the council estate, that have a high proportion of people living on the poverty line or below it’. For others, the spatial marginalisation of poverty enables its denial amongst those residents who hold on to different constructions of local rural life: . . .as far as Patbourne is concerned, we as the WI are not aware of any deprivation within the village. (Chair of the local Women’s Institute)

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It is amazing how the incomers and affluent sections of these rural areas actually do not want to open their eyes very much to what’s going on with the people around them. (Local welfare agency worker) The physical separation of poor and affluent groups within this the village is also compounded by their occupation of different local social spaces. 12 In-mover service class groups tend to spend much of their time–– in relation to employment, shopping and socialising––in spaces located beyond the village, whereas those on lowincomes are, in may ways, Ôtrapped’ within the local spaces of the village. 3.3. Local geographies of rural poverty Poverty in Patbourne also needs to be considered within a broader social context, as the nature of local rural space has changed markedly over recent years. Three components of such change concern local employment, the provision of essential services and housing markets. In relation to the first of these, there has been a marked reduction in employment opportunities in the local area over recent years. Farming and other local industries have declined, and new servicesector forms of employment have emerged, located in urban centres away from Patbourne. These changing patterns of employment have impacted differentially on social groups within the village. Clearly, the presence of these new labour markets has facilitated an in-movement of middle-class groups into the village, who are able and willing to commute to urban spaces for employment. For others in Patbourne, though, commuting has been accepted in less positive terms as a necessary part of maintaining their residence in the village. As one person commented, Ôthere was nothing locally; that’s why I’m working in Newbury’. For another group of residents who could not afford to own and run a car, a combination of limited employment opportunities and a restricted public transport system in the local area had resulted in prolonged periods of unemployment. Finally, some residents had left the village altogether and moved to those (urban) places which offered greater employment opportunities. Several respondents to the survey highlighted this out-movement of young people as a significant issue facing the village: Basically this is an agricultural area. There is no industry for the young people to go into. So they have to leave which is bad for Patbourne. (p. 201)

10

After deductions for tax and housing costs. Council Tax Rebate, Housing Benefit, Income Support, Single Parent Benefit and Unemployment Benefit. 11

12

Mormont (1990) has discussed the nature of these multiple social spaces in a rural context in greater detail.

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It would be nice to see younger people in the village but there is no work for them. The only people who can move to Patbourne are those who commute. It’s a viscous circle. Younger people often have no transport to live in Patbourne and work outside. (p. 165) Lack of access to a car also impacted on other aspects of daily life for poor people in Patbourne. With a local public transport system that was universally criticised by residents as restrictive, in relation to affordability and frequency of service, those without access to a car were effectively locked into the local spaces of the village for significant periods of time. And such forms of spatial containment place a reliance on a restricted range of local retail opportunities, which, it can be suggested, can accentuate the material components of poverty. As one local resident in a benefit household observed, Ôthe [local] Co-op is very expensive but we have to rely on the Co-op. We noticed that if we have to go to Devizes that we can get double the shopping for our money than we get in Patbourne’. In order to cope without a car, several low-income residents reported that they had adopted particular tactics to enable them to access services located beyond the local spaces of the village. Some arranged their lives around the limited number of daily local bus services, others relied on the goodwill of local friends and relatives who owned cars, while still others were forced to make use of other forms of Ôpublic’ transport provision, most notably taxis, which often added to situations of material hardship: I have to get a taxi to go to [other] villages. Fares are very expensive and [there are] no concessions. I can’t get to the job centre [because] they’re cutting buses left, right and centre. (unemployed male resident, 128) There are people who are desperately trying to make ends meet and are applying for Housing Benefit and are having to pay for taxis to come in and claim it. It’s ludicrous really. (Statutory agency, 3) The shifting nature of local housing provision is also leading to new forms of exclusions in Patbourne. Housing was viewed both as a channel of entry into Patbourne for middle-class groups and as a channel of exit for those on low-incomes. Half of all respondents in the household survey indicated that housing represented the most significant issue facing particular groups in the village. Two components of this perceived housing problem can be identified, with each connected to the privatised and increasingly exclusive nature of local rural space. The first concerns private sector housing. With a high level of demand from in-moving middleclass groups, together with restrictions on new property

developments imposed by the local planning system, house prices had increased significantly over recent years. Consequently, a growing number of lower-income residents, and particularly younger people wanting to move out of the parental home, have been excluded from the local private housing market (which accounts for around 85% of all properties). Secondly, opportunities for accessing the local social housing sector remain limited; there exists relatively little social rental property in the village, and young people (without children) are not prioritised by social housing allocation systems. Consequently, young lower-income residents are faced with two choices; attempt to secure less affordable housing options locally (and face the potential financial consequences) or relocate to other (urban) spaces which contain a greater supply of affordable accommodation. In either case, it is clear from commentaries provided by village residents that housing is leading to new forms of exclusion in the locality: It’s very difficult. A lot of friends are having to move elsewhere because they can’t find places. People born and bred here are having to move away whilst people are coming in from outside and taking the housing. (p. 231) Youngsters have problems in finding housing that they can afford. The housing being built is too expensive. It drives young people away from their village. (p. 273) The old are dying off, the local young people can’t afford to live here [and] we have an influx of people who live here but go elsewhere to work. (p. 182) It’s got very yuppified; commuters being allocated our housing and they don’t even work here. (p. 154) Local rural poverty also needs to be positioned within the shifting social context of Patbourne. It is clear from feelings expressed in the commentaries set out above, that the in-movement of new middle-class groups is seen as impacting detrimentally on the housing chances of young people in the village––with outside groups being accused of Ôtaking the housing’, Ôallocated our housing’ and Ôdriving away’ young people. In-moving middleclass groups have impacted on the social nature of poverty and social exclusion in other ways. In particular, the middle-class in-migration has accentuated feelings of economic and cultural marginalisation being experienced by those on low-incomes within the village. As one agency worker commented in relation to lone parent poverty, Ôthere is a lot of resentment amongst lone parents on low incomes because they have to live alongside people with three cars who commute’.

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While most residents held onto a sense of community cohesion, which was cabable of bonding together different social groups within the village, many also considered that the nature of local community life was in a state of flux. Newly arrived middle-class groups were viewed by several low-income residents as creating new separate or exclusionary social spaces in the village. As has been reported in other studies of changing rural lifestyles (see Cloke et al., 1997), in-moving groups were accused of opting out of the existing village social mainstream; Ôthe yuppies on the new estate don’t take part in village life’ (p. 243) was how one person expressed this process. Others saw the new middle-classes as imposing new sets of value systems onto local space. In the words of another resident (who was living in a benefit household), Ôyou have new people moving into the area with new ideas they want to inflict on you’ (p. 165). An example of the exclusionary effects that these new kinds of social spaces can bring about can be seen in terms of networks of community support in the village. In the following commentary, a local welfare agency worker describes how the establishment of a new support network for women with young children had led to feelings of marginalisation amongst some mothers: Where mothers and young children are concerned, an interesting situation is. . .where you get middleclass women who come in to the village with access to a car, usually two-car families. You also have a pocket of women who are single parents or [on] low income who then become more isolated and non-service users. This is partly because the middle-class women who come in are the ones setting up the mother [and] toddler groups or. . .coffee mornings. What this is doing is pushing women who are less confident further and further away. . .[making them] more and more isolated. With a lack of any state or private sector child-care provision in Patbourne, this form of informal welfare provision takes on an increased significance. The same can be said about other forms of local welfare provision, which, in the context of Patbourne, are provided informally rather than through state and related agencies. 13 One important consequence of these informal systems of welfare provision, is that they are often initiated and organised by dominant social groups, who tend not be those in receipt of this welfare support. Several agency workers suggested that local welfare had traditionally been delivered through paternalistic systems of power in rural Wiltshire, with the legacy of such systems very 13 Howard Newby (1986) has provided a broader geographical and historical discussion of the (informal) nature of welfare provision in rural areas.

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much evident in villages such as Patbourne. As one of these workers explained: . . .it’s the squiredom; the lady of the manor who looks after the farm workers, etc., and it’s a form of care in the community that has been going on for years. It’s not something I like because I think it’s awfully patronising and I think that it is one of the problems that the district council will have to address in the future. . .One of the things that is becoming very apparent is that they don’t have problems in the same way that other people have, because there is always someone there such as the colonel’s wife who is running the soup kitchen. . . Patbourne does have more of a sense of community but whether it’s something that can be regarded as community I don’t know. It seems to me that the image fits more comfortably with the idea that they are all individuals who are divided and ruled by the person who lives in the big house. These systems of informal welfare provision can be seen to perform two very different functions within local rural space. On a positive note, the limited activities of the local state in providing welfare services locally mean that this informal provision has provided a restricted but nevertheless valuable function in delivering welfare to local people. More negatively, as a greater political priority has been given to rural poverty over recent years and local authorities have developed welfare policies which can be delivered in de-centralised ways in rural areas (see Cloke et al., 2001; Milbourne, 1997), these historical cultures of paternalistic welfare support have created difficulties for front-line officers. As one officer commented: . . .when an older person comes to the attention of a support agency, they have a higher level of need than their urban counterpart. They have tried to carry on surviving, their expectations are lower, they have no access to facilities, they don’t have the information, and by the time they go for help they really are quite desperate. This can also apply to the younger generation living in these villages as well. People in rural areas like Patbourne have such low expectations, both economically and socially. Often people in rural areas don’t realise what they are missing out on, compared with their urban counterparts. Finally, understandings of poverty within Patbourne need to be positioned within a broader social context, which considers ideas of local community cohesion. While some residents pointed to the emergence of local social divisions, most––74% of all respondents to the survey––considered themselves part of some form of

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local community. In one sense, the feelings of inclusion offered by such a close-knit community reinforces Room’s (1995) argument that strong forms of local community infrastructure are able to offset key facets of social exclusion; with physical isolation from jobs, housing and services being compensated for by a strong sense of social cohesion and informal social support mechanisms. However, in Patbourne, the situation is more complicated than this. Here, community inclusion is also able to accentuate other dimensions of social exclusion, as people experiencing poverty in these spaces of limited welfare provision increasingly look inwards to deal with, or deny, problems relating to local poverty: What needs to be understood. . .is [that these are] very close-knit communities, and so if you went around saying ÔI am poor and I can’t make ends meet’, this information would be spread around very quickly and you would be stigmatised by it. So you get a denial of poverty.

4. Conclusion The intention of this paper has been to focus critical attention on to the local geographies of poverty. The paper commenced with a critical assessment of the state of recent academic work on the geographies of poverty within Britain. Leyshon’s (1995) review clearly highlighted the marginalisation of welfare studies within geography and painted a rather pessimistic picture of the future state of geographical research on poverty. Almost 10 years on from the publication of this review, the situation identified by this paper regarding the geographies of poverty appears to be more mixed. Looking positively at recent developments in this area, it is clear that cultural developments within geography have allowed for more sensitive accounts of welfare, as engagements between social and cultural approaches have opened up new possibilities for making sense of the connections between poverty, place and space. Beyond geography, social welfare researchers have also begun to take more seriously the social and spatial components of poverty as they have increasingly positioned their work within developing academic/policy discourses of social exclusion. In addition, shifting national government welfare agendas have opened up new geographical agendas for poverty research, most notably through the increased provision of local poverty data. Even with these positive turns, there remains much work to be done before more critical and sophisticated accounts of the geographies of poverty are developed. Important here is a shift in emphasis that is required from a focus on the differential spaces of poverty to a

concern with the complex geographies of poverty. By this I mean that geographical attention needs to move beyond the description of spatial variations in the scales and concentrations of poverty in Britain to encompass a broader set of concerns with the linkages between poverty and people in particular places. In this paper I have set out how this broader place-based agenda for poverty studies can be usefully taken forward through a focus on the local geographies of poverty, which involves consideration being given to the productions, representations, materialities and experiences of poverty in individual places, together with an understanding of the different mixes of welfare provision in these places. This broadened agenda also makes connections between social and cultural approaches within geography by bringing together concerns with power relations, social structures and cultural politics. These new geographies of poverty should provide highly interesting and challenging research agendas for those academic geographers who are keen to work at the social–cultural interface; they should also prove to be highly relevant to those geographers who strive towards the alleviation of poverty within society. As other writers on the subject have stressed (for example, McCormick and Philo, 1995), poverty remains a highly geographical phenomenon that impacts in different ways on different groups of people living in different places. It thus warrants further and more critical attention from geographers. This paper has gone some way in highlighting how more sophisticated approaches to the geographies of poverty may be developed. Using a case-study space located in South-west England, attention has been given to the complex spatial and social contexts of poverty. I will deal with each of these in turn. The paper has stressed the importance of treating sensitively the different spatial scales of poverty. It is clear from the casestudy that the selection of a particular spatial scale of analysis of poverty data impacts on the visibilities of poverty in these spaces. The utilisation of national data on quality-of-life indicators, for example, constructs the case-study county as one of the least disadvantaged areas of the country. However, when the spatial lens is focused more locally a somewhat different geographical picture of poverty emerges; one in which poor and nonpoor groups occupy similar spaces and benefit recipient households are present in almost every local community within the county. In addition, when the local spaces of poverty are examined in greater depth, an ever more complex picture emerges in which the juxtaposition of poverty and wealth is in fact characterised by a great deal of spatial segregation, with poor and non-poor groups occupying different physical and social spaces within the study village. As well as drawing attention to the different spatial scales of poverty, the study has highlighted some

P. Milbourne / Geoforum 35 (2004) 559–575

broader geographies of poverty within these local spaces. It is clear that poverty can only be meaningfully understood if it is positioned within the wider economic, social, cultural, political and welfare contexts of the case-study. Restricted levels of state intervention in relation to the provision of essential public and welfare services, together with the rigid regulation of the local built and natural environments have transformed many rural spaces in Wiltshire into privatised arenas of exclusive consumption. Within these spaces there is a distinct lack of social housing, public transport services, public health provision, welfare facilities, and so on, which leads to new forms of vulnerability and exclusion for local groups living in poverty. While some residents employ coping tactics to enable them to remain in local rural space, others are forced to relocate to other (urban) spaces where social and welfare provision is more accessible. The privatised and exclusive nature of these rural spaces also makes them attractive to those (ex-urban) middle-class groups seeking out particular (safe and problem-free) forms of rural lifestyle. For the in-moving middle-classes, the absence of social/welfare facilities provides a defence mechanism which is able to limit the presence of marginal(ised) groups in local rural spaces and facilitate the active regulation of this space through the private market. The increased presence of the middle-classes in these spaces has no doubt added to feelings of marginalisation and exclusion amongst poor households, as local social structures have altered and poor people have been made to feel more aware of their own situations of poverty. To an extent, the presence of a strong sense of community has been able to offset broader structural and social aspects of exclusion. However, the nature of this community cohesion has also produced more complex outcomes; it has led to denials of poverty amongst some of its members, while the informal systems of local welfare associated with this community support remain bound up with paternalistic and class-based local structures of power which reinforce the marginalised position of the poor within local space. I want to end this paper by considering the wider significance of this case-study for understandings of the local geographies of poverty. Given that the bulk of local poverty research in Britain is focused on urban spaces, some would argue that a rural case-study like the one used within this paper needs to be appropriately contextualised. However, one danger associated with this argument is that work on poverty in rural areas is only awarded significance when it is counterposed against the urban; that is, when its distinctive rural elements are emphasised. Nevertheless, I will draw out certain features of poverty revealed by this case-study that I consider to be important. There is little doubt that the selection of this particular case-study has led to some

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place-specific findings concerning poverty. The fact that these spaces are characterised by particular assemblages of social, cultural, economic, political and welfare-based factors clearly impact on the nature and experiences of poverty revealed within them. Beyond these local specificities, it can be suggested that key findings from this case-study are indicative of wider situations associated with similar types of rural spaces, most notably those rural areas located within daily commuting distance of significant employment centres that have proved so attractive to ex-urban middle-class groups in Britain. More generally, findings from the case-study would also appear to support those emerging from other studies of poverty (see Cloke et al., 1997; Milbourne, 1997) by pointing to some particular rural features of poverty, which include its physical invisibilities, cultural and political denials, limited spatial segregation of poor and non-poor groups, and restricted provision of welfare support for poor groups in rural areas. Findings from this study, though, also have a broader spatial currency, given that they point to the importance of making sense of the different spatial scales of poverty, as well as the complex relationships that exist between poverty, people and place within particular spatial contexts. With additional place-based case-studies of poverty, it is hoped that better understandings of the local geographies of poverty in Britain can be developed and that less reliance will need to be placed on the Ôjourneys to the edge’ of travel writers.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank the three anonymous referees for their useful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

References Alcock, P., 1997. Understanding Poverty, second ed. Macmillan, London. Bauman, Z., 2001. Community: Seeking Safety in an Insecure World. Polity Press, Cambridge. Beresford, P., Green, D., Lister, R., Woodward, K., 1999. Poverty First Hand: Poor People Speak for Themselves. CPAG, London. Booth, C., 1889. The Life and Labour of the People. Williams and Northgate, London. Burchardt, T., Le Grand, J., Piachaud, D., 1999. Social exclusion in Britain 1991–95. Social Policy and Administration 33 (2), 227– 244. Bramley, G., Lancaster, S., Gordon, D., 2000. Benefit take-up and the geography of poverty in Scotland. Regional Studies 34 (6), 507– 519. Byrne, D., 1989. Beyond the Inner City. Open University Press, Milton Keynes.

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