UK Land Use Futures: Policy influence and challenges for the coming decades

Land Use Policy 28 (2011) 674–683

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Land Use Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol

UK Land Use Futures: Policy influence and challenges for the coming decades Janet Dwyer ∗ CCRI, University of Gloucestershire, Countryside and Community Research Institute, Dunholme Villa, The Park, Cheltenham GL50 2RH, United Kingdom

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 14 February 2010 Received in revised form 13 October 2010 Accepted 2 December 2010 Keywords: Rural land use policy Future Governance systems Challenges Institutional analysis

a b s t r a c t This paper, originally contributed as part of the government’s Foresight investigation of Land Use Futures, considers the likely shape of policies affecting UK rural land use up to 2060, based on literature review, analysis of past and current trends and drivers, and discussion with selected policy experts. The postwar, centralised approach to spatial planning and countryside management has come under increasing challenge from domestic and international needs and concerns. European policy influence has increased in respect of agriculture and the natural environment. Zoning of land-use and a restrictive approach to built development have gradually weakened, and land-use drivers have become more multifunctional. Policy has moved away from a ‘top-down’ process designed in Whitehall towards a multi-layered structure within which international agreements and negotiations must be reconciled with regional and local, partnership-based approaches to planning and management, via national frameworks and a complex mix of regulatory and market-based instruments. Climate and energy policy, as well as policies on food and health, will require new and more diverse forms of development. A major challenge for the future could be the extent to which current, multi-layered spatial planning policies can accommodate the scale of change implied by the new mix of drivers from other policy areas. There is the possibility of an increasingly differentiated response across the UK countryside, as well as much more radical change in the system driven from the centre, as pressures increase. While the Government Office for Science commissioned this review, the views are those of the author, are independent of Government, and do not constitute Government policy. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction: purpose and context for the paper Lowe and Ward (2009) have commented upon the ‘spate of rural futures studies’ that have been conducted in the UK, noting that these can provide a useful means to promote public debate about collective challenges and potential solutions. Many of these studies involve considerable investment of resources and the deployment of a range of qualitative and quantitative methods, in their attempts to develop or predict different kinds of ‘future’. In some, complex scenarios are developed using formal modelling, expert review and iterative adaptation of the former by the latter (e.g. CEC, 2006, 2007). Others take a more exclusively qualitative approach, using techniques developed initially as private sector business planning tools, such as systems thinking (Ison, 2008) and scenario building (Ringland, 2002). This paper offers an analysis that was initially prepared as a short ‘scientific review’, designed to feed into the

∗ Tel.: +44 01242 71428. E-mail address: [email protected] 0264-8377/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2010.12.002

‘Land Use Futures’ (LUF) review led by the Government’s Foresight team, which took place during 2008–2009 and followed an iterative and largely qualitative methodology (HMSO, 2009). As such, this individual contribution to the LUF process formed only one part of the much larger ‘evidence base’, upon which the full futures exercise was constructed by means of workshops and themed working groups developing and synthesising ideas about the future of land use in the UK. Nevertheless, the brief for the paper was essentially similar to a futures exercise, but only in respect of the likely development of public policy. Its aim was to construct a plausible picture of the shape and focus of land use policy in the UK from now up to 2060, as a means of pinpointing some key strategic challenges that may lie ahead. In respect of the wider ‘futures’ literature, it should therefore be seen as a small and very much expert opinion-based contribution to a larger futures study and the subsequent debates that it sought to stimulate (HMSO, 2009). This paper offers a socio-political and institutional contribution to the analysis of future land use, intended to complement a range of contributions coming from a more strictly ‘natural science’ perspective, as illustrated in the special ‘Foresight’ issue of this journal

J. Dwyer / Land Use Policy 28 (2011) 674–683

(LUP, 2009). The brief is a challenging one, both in respect of the breadth of issues that need to be covered, and in respect of the very long time horizon required. It concentrates upon those policies which are likely to affect rural land use, since this is the core area of the author’s research expertise. Thus, this paper does not include detailed analysis of urban land-use policy trends; these were covered in another of the review papers. Nor does the paper explicitly analyse the direct influence of non-policy drivers, notably demographic and lifestyle change, including rural ageing and migration, which will undoubtedly have impacts upon future land use (Lowe and Ward, 2009). Nevertheless, non-policy drivers are frequently a stimulus to policy change, and thus it is strictly in that role that some such influences must be considered, here. Research method So, how should one approach the task of predicting future policy, for the next 50 years? Policy and legislation are rarely considered as topics which can be predicted over long timescales: the short-term nature of the political process means that immediate agendas and priorities tend to change every few years. The creation of public policy is ‘a matter of human agency, both of societies and individuals’ (Schneider and Ingram, 1999), and is subject to the regular cycles of the political process within the western democratic tradition. Nevertheless, it is possible to develop plausible and considered future policy trajectories by adopting an institutional and systemic approach to the analysis and prediction of policy process, based upon an understanding of key drivers for policymaking, discernible patterns of policy design, implementation and development, and wider consideration of institutional cultures, path-dependencies and the changing styles and requirements of rural governance. Unlike governments, which change relatively frequently, these underlying patterns tend to persist through several decades, and can therefore be a potentially more reliable indicator of future policy coverage and potential gaps. The key determinants of future policy are thus a complex mix of institutional, societal and individual drivers and inter-relationships in the policymaking arena (Hertin et al., 2009), rather than a set of variables ‘external’ to this mix, such as climate change or global recession. External elements like these often provide the challenges around which policies evolve and coalesce, and it is therefore the mix of ‘external’ and ‘internal’ factors that determine what they achieve. Thus, the ‘evidence’ from which one can assemble a picture of future policy and legislative trends should be gathered as much from ‘grey’ literature: policy documents (statements, consultations, public and parliamentary inquiries) and reports commissioned by policy makers and lobby groups; as it is from information provided in scientific journal articles. Reviewing a broad range of such literature was an essential first step in developing the analysis presented in this paper. This enabled a fleshing-out of the trends in institutional and political culture and styles of operation that both frame issues, and underpin the ways in which they are responded to, within policy (Owens et al., 2004). The second, and equally important, phase of work involved targeting and conducting a small number of semi-structured discussions with other experts in the field of policy analysis and evaluation. Agendas and likely trajectories of future policy development could be identified by undertaking a simple form of ‘scenario development’ (Ringland, 2002) with each of them, covering those areas of policy with which they are most familiar and adopting a ‘story-telling’ approach (Fuller-Love et al., 2006). This produced narratives that encapsulated their expectations of the key changes, timescales and challenges that future policy would experience, up to 2060. The four experts covered different areas of analytical policy expertise, as follows:

675

1. EU strategic and environmental policy; 2. UK Town and Country Planning and its relationship with rural economic activity; 3. Rural land use ownership, management and dynamics; 4. Spatial planning for urban development and minerals policy, as they affect rural areas. All four have worked in their field for more than 30 years, and successfully combined skills in independent analysis and policy evaluation with an ability to work closely with policy-makers and other stakeholders. Their particular knowledge and experience complements that of the author, which is in UK and European agricultural and rural development policies (ca. 25 years) and forms a fifth strand of ‘expert’ input to the paper. The bilateral discussions followed a similar structure. Firstly, we explored how policies in their area at present and in the recent past have operated, and characterised current trends and challenges. Then, a timeline for future policy developments was formulated, differentiating between known changes already in the pipeline (essentially ‘planned commitments’), and those which might reasonably be anticipated, given wider trends and political and institutional concerns. This exercise was able to map out likely changes for the next 15–20 years. Looking further ahead and up to 2060, the discussion tended to coalesce around a small number of key criteria which might determine policy change, sketching out two or three alternative scenarios which would result, depending upon these determinants. The ‘data’ emerging from literature review and these expert discussions were brought together and interpreted qualitatively by the author, in a cumulative way, in order to attempt to develop a 50year horizon for the mix of policies affecting UK land use. Inevitably, the emerging picture is much clearer for the next 30 years than it is beyond that point, but some key challenges and potential directions of travel have been identified for the longer term, which particularly shapes the paper’s conclusions. These conclusions are my own, and have not been extensively shared or discussed with the other experts contributing to the process; hence the scope for explicit debate during this process has been fairly limited. However, the outline and draft text were peer-reviewed through the wider LUF process, which helped to extend the analysis in a number of respects. The rest of this paper is structured in four sections reflecting the analytical pathway followed. “Land use policy data and trends” briefly examines past data and trends, to characterise how relevant policies have evolved over the last half-century, to set current and future developments in context; while “Key challenges and future prospects” considers the current state of policy and ongoing development in areas which are considered key for influencing future land use patterns and processes, and attempts to set out likely trajectories for the next half-century. “Combined impacts and implications for governance and policy” draws out the combined effects of the evolving policy landscape described in “Key challenges and future prospects” and its implications for governance and policy-making more widely; and the paper ends with brief conclusions as to the main points of interest, challenge and uncertainty for future policy. Land use policy data and trends This section surveys key policy and legislative influences on past UK land use, from the immediate postwar period to the present. These matters are dealt with in more depth in other papers in the Foresight series (see LUP, 2009), but a brief recap here enables a consideration of possible path-dependencies in future policy, and

676

J. Dwyer / Land Use Policy 28 (2011) 674–683

helps to characterise the potentially enduring nature of UK policy culture in the rural and territorial domain. The UK’s post-war policy for land use was determined to a large extent by policy thinking which took place during the war years. The key legislation included the 1940 Barlow report, the 1942 Scott Committee on Land Utilisation in Rural Areas and the 1947 Agriculture Act and 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act. Wartime experience also assured the continuance of a post-war public estate for forestry and defence, and continuing financial support for agricultural modernisation and hill farming. The postwar policy vision was for a land surface largely preserved as countryside and held in private hands, for the purposes of agricultural production and amenity. Urban and industrial development would be, by inference, subordinate and thus confined to pre-determined geographical areas, and specific policy initiatives would ensure the provision of natural habitats for science, and access to the countryside for the general public (Dwyer and Hodge, 2001; Curry, 2008). The key mechanisms through which this vision was pursued were: • General development control over built development and major excavations; • locally devolved but nationally guided spatial planning which led to restrictive territorial ‘zoning’, between land whose primary purpose should remain agricultural and land available to other uses; • funding to accelerate agricultural and agro-industrial modernisation; • fiscal mechanisms to attempt to capture the development value in land, to discourage speculation and encourage long-term landholding and continuity of management (e.g. within agricultural tenancies); • new public authorities, created for the purposes of designating nature reserves and National Parks in England and Wales. This vision and its principal policy instruments were dominant influences upon land use throughout the 1950s and 1960s. However, during the 1960s, negative impacts began to be recognised. Conflicts with other areas of policy were increasing, and criticisms of the approach were to develop significantly in the following two decades (Shoard, 1980; Body, 1982). On one hand, advances in environmental science, as well as a perceived growing public demand for recreation and landscape appreciation, led to an increasingly damning critique of the assumption that agricultural modernisation was a benign process, compatible with societal demands (Bowers and Cheshire, 1983; NCC, 1984). On the other hand, a burgeoning population and increasing counterurbanisation (Halfacree, 1994) placed increasing strain on the process of local development control and the nature of rural settlements (Newby, 1991). Gallant (2009) notes that even under the relatively restrictive postwar regime, development outside urban centres continued. Growth around existing urban areas was supplemented by creating a series of garden cities and new towns on land in rural locations around England and Wales (Hall, 1985). Even policies for which there was often very strong local support, such as green belts around major conurbations, were slowly destabilised by creeping development on either side. The dominant policy framework began to change as a result of the UK’s entry to the European Economic Community in 1973, requiring this country to adopt its suite of common policies. This ‘European era’ in UK policy became a major influence upon rural land, not least due to the scale of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The CAP offered significant market support to farming and thus increased its relative influence over rural land ownership and management, despite counter-urbanisation. CAP market

support ensured a profitable and increasingly industrialised agriculture through the 1970s and 1980s, in which large farms with a continually declining labour requirement came to manage the majority of rural land (Bowers and Cheshire, 1983; Dwyer and Hodge, 2001). But the CAP was already under budgetary and political strain by the time of Britain’s accession to the Community, and this was to worsen over the next decade. Significant reform became essential in the early 1980s (Neville-Rolfe, 1984). The 1984 introduction of milk quotas signalled the start of more than 20 years of CAP reform, which has sought to realign the policy more closely with societal demands from rural land management (Baldock et al., 2002). Direct incentives to maximise production of agricultural commodities have been replaced with progressively less ‘coupled’ farm income support. An extensive literature rehearses the detail and implications of this long-term process of reform and decoupling in the UK (e.g. see Fennell, 1997; Grant, 1997; Defra, 2009b; Dwyer and Boatman, 2006). In parallel, a new Rural Development policy to support competitiveness, environmental land management, the diversification of rural economies and enhanced quality of rural life, has been slowly established as the ‘second pillar’ of the CAP (CEC, 2006a; Dwyer et al., 2007). In parallel with the reform process, European funding for Regional Development also became a significant influence in more remote and marginal parts of the UK, from the 1990s onwards. A second, and increasingly important, effect of EU membership has been the development of environmental legislation with growing influence upon UK land use (Haigh, 2009). While the UK had long-established policies reflecting public concern for environmental protection, the most significant environmental policies in respect of land use are a post-accession phenomenon. EC Directives on aspects of water management have developed incrementally, culminating in 2000 in the Water Framework Directive, which requires all Member States to set and pursue demanding targets for water protection. In addition, EU-led legislation on waste (notably the Landfill Directive and Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive), air pollution, pesticides and other hazardous substances have all affected UK land use decision-making, as has EU legislation on biodiversity and habitat protection. One difference between these two main strands of EU policy – agriculture and environment – lies in the nature of legal instruments which implement them, which also has implications for their impacts. CAP legislation is in the form of Regulations, which prescribe the action that must be taken within each Member State to implement the policy. Environmental legislation is much more dependent upon Directives, which oblige Member States to pursue targets and follow particular procedures to establish domestic policy tools, but which leave their precise form largely to each country. Thus policy implementation for Directives is generally slower and more subject to negotiation and influence by domestic stakeholders, than for Regulations, and their impacts are generally less immediate. Experience suggests that many EC/EU environmental policies have been subject to delayed or sometimes incomplete implementation in the UK, and there is significant scope for enhancement in the years ahead (Expert 1). This shift in policy instigated by European processes was implemented in tandem with the adoption of a more strategic approach to land-use planning in the domestic arena. The Town and Country Planning Acts (1968 for England and Wales and 1969 for Scotland) introduced a new system of Structure and Local Plans that provided the opportunity for prescriptive (and largely restrictive) land use planning policies. By 1991, all rural areas had become subject to a local plan (Owen and Moseley, 2003). It is possible to identify common trends in governance and styles of policy making, over these two main periods. Immediately after

J. Dwyer / Land Use Policy 28 (2011) 674–683

the war, the main land-use policies were implemented through centralised planning and a vision of the ‘provider-state’, as in many other areas of governance (e.g. education, health and social services). Nevertheless, decisions on the management of rural land remained largely based upon voluntary action by private landholders (Munton, 2009). However, land use policy was not immune to economic stagnation and growing fragmentation of the postwar consensus of the 1970s, and the subsequent rise of neo-liberal politics following the 1979 election. Coupled with the advent of European influence, this heralded a shift towards a greater reliance on framework approaches to policy, as well as devolution and an increasing resort to ‘partnership’ (as an explicit, rather than implicit, process) in the detailed design and implementation of policy. Increasingly, landuse planning and management has become a process in which stakeholder partnerships are used to help set and oversee strategic directions in policy, with the government as an enabler in that process, rather than policy being largely conceived and directed by Parliament and the Whitehall-based civil service (various aspects of these developments are discussed by Winter, 2006; Ward and Lowe, 2007). The trend has gradually affected agricultural, environmental and spatial planning policies. Key challenges and future prospects This section examines current and likely future policy developments with significant land use implications for the UK, responding to key drivers for policymaking. These drivers have been identified from earlier work in this area (e.g. Kaditi and Swinnen, 2007; Dwyer, 2007; Dwyer and Boatman, 2006), and include those established in past decades, as discussed in “Land use policy data and trends”, as well as new concerns and trends deriving from much more recent external events and research. The more historically ‘established’ (and therefore perhaps more predictable) elements include: spatial planning; EU agriculture and rural development policy and related international trade agreements; and environmental legislation. Those which have emerged much more recently and also have significant rural land use policy implications, in the opinion of this author and the 4 experts interviewed, would include climate change and energy policy; and food and health policies. Each of these is therefore covered briefly here, in order to identify its main contemporary characteristics, future trends and wherever possible, planned timelines or targets. The ‘old retainers’: spatial planning – urban, rural, minerals and infrastructure These areas of policy seem likely to remain a central influence upon land use over the coming half-century, since they still have arguably the most ubiquitous impact upon irreversible land use change. However, they shape and are shaped by the prospects for urban and industrial development, the regional, rural and subregional development agendas, and the implications of lifestyle changes among the population, both urban and rural (Expert interviews 2 and 4). Nationally directed policies seem likely to secure some new towns to accommodate demand, with a south-east bias but also affecting middle England, as well as related new transport infrastructure, principally through enlarged road intersections. On a national scale, investment in a modestly expanded rail network seems likely. It is even possible that a renovated canal system could become more important in response to increasing costs of road transport and the application of much stronger carbon reduction targets to the sector. Within strategic planning, the devolved UK

677

regions (Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland) seem likely to develop their main hubs, and in England we might anticipate new growth in the main city-regions of Exeter, Leeds, Newcastle, Peterborough, Manchester, and Nottingham as well as Birmingham. However, the nature of new development is hotly contested. While some argue strongly for higher-density urban development and thus minimal use of rural space (Power, 2009), others suggest that continuing interest in leisure time and home production of food could imply garden or allotment growth within conurbations, as well as continuing urban–rural migration and more dispersed development, perhaps linked to the critical need for more affordable rural housing (Burgess, 2007). Overall, it seems likely that there will be more built development for business, housing and leisure in both urban and rural settings, which implies land-take as well as significant re-use. If the new infrastructure associated with climate and energy policy, and continued emphasis upon mass transportation of goods, lead to growth in supporting service economies, more new residential and commercial development at the main intersections of infrastructures can be envisaged. While some of this would be in existing regional cities, it would also concern locations which are currently rural, for example, points on the coast from which offshore wind and wave power installations are supported. One critical element in resourcing the development of new settlements, industries and infrastructure in rural and urban areas will be UK minerals policy, which provides the framework within which raw materials for construction and roads, as well as key components for UK chemicals and manufacturing, are sourced. Following an intense period of review in 2008 (DCLG, 2008; BGS, 2008), no major change to existing policies is envisaged for the short term, leaving decisions largely up to local planning authorities and thus implying little new development for the next decade or so. The critical date is 2042, when all existing permissions to extract will lapse if they have not been activated. This could trigger a new and more strategic policy approach around that time, in order to balance anticipated continuing strong demand from the extractive industries (to provide for the new growth outlined above), against what is likely to be widespread resistance from local planners on amenity, biodiversity and nuisance grounds. The strategic approach will be needed if governments are concerned to ensure continued viable supplies from domestic sources, particularly considering marine as well as terrestrial sites, such as the Bristol Channel. In addition, long-term sustainability could require a more precautionary approach to permitting development on sites of potential significance for future mineral working, as well as more robust habitat relocation or regeneration projects alongside worked sites. Experience suggests that this capacity has so far been lacking within the contemporary planning system (Expert interview 4). At the local scale, there seems likely to be an increasing assertion of community land uses (distinct from either private or public use), through community land trusts for housing, primary production, environmental and amenity uses, and workspace. Scotland has already moved to considerably strengthen the ability for communities to gain greater influence in land use and management through land rights legislation and the crofting review (Shucksmith, 2008) whose main recommendations have been implemented (Scottish Government, 2008). This trend is currently encapsulated within the new vocabulary of ‘the big society’, but it echoes also the ‘third way’ of the Blairite agenda (Hutton, 1995), and a range of political and social commentary from the wider rural policy community (including for example, Carnegie, Plunkett, ACRE and the Commission for Rural Communities). Such moves across the UK are likely to be supported through community finance, and to seek to maximise the potential of local assets held for the benefit of local people (Expert interview 2). Where this occurs, the dominant influences upon land

678

J. Dwyer / Land Use Policy 28 (2011) 674–683

use will alter. This is because the new institutional arrangements often stem wholly or partly from non-market ethics, such as social inclusion, equity and stewardship, which tend to be less influenced by conventional market and policy signals than situations where land is held primarily for commercial purposes (Expert interview 3). Looking at current trends in spatial planning policy, the question arises as to whether the existing, largely devolved nature of development control is sufficiently balanced to enable the types and scale of rural change that are suggested by agendas in other areas – most notably climate, environment and energy policies (see later), but also the sustainable development aspects of future EU rural funding programmes. Some authors already claim that NIMBY-ism is preventing necessary moves towards more sustainable living, citing cases where affluent homeowners resist new developments of any kind, regardless of their wider societal value (Curry, 2008; Taylor, 2008, p. 89). Similar points have been raised in respect of the new energy and climate agenda (Humphries and Keeble, 2008), although the proposed National Planning Statements of the previous administration, if implemented, would have centralised control for large, renewable energy developments. If one accepts significant local resistance as a risk then, looking forward a further 50 years, it is important to consider how such barriers might be overcome through additional policy or market developments, and how the undoubted need for new facilities can be balanced against strengthening biodiversity and ecosystem concerns, in particular. Evolving EU agriculture and rural development policy 2013 will herald a new seven-year budget and legal framework for EU policies and we might anticipate a similar multi-annual renewal to follow this, around 2020. Further reform of the Common Agricultural Policy is inevitable on these occasions, as a result of continued pressure from net contributors to reduce the EU budget, and the interests of the new Member States (those 12 that have joined since 2004) in gaining equal treatment under the main funding policies, CAP and Cohesion policy. While the UK government has stridently called for a complete removal of farm income support under the so-called ‘pillar 1 of the CAP (HM Treasury and Defra, 2005), this seems unlikely to materialise in the face of stiff opposition from countries including France, Spain and Poland, as well as many lobby groups from among the EU farm sector. Instead, in recognition of the wider financial downturn, a significant reduction in the absolute scale and relative importance of this pillar of the policy can be envisaged, extending probably beyond 2020 and up to 2028. The entire CAP could be cut by perhaps 30 per cent in real terms; while EU funding for pillar 2, the rural development and environmental land management element, seems likely to be expanded (but by rather less, in absolute terms, than the cuts to its Pillar 1 spend). The overall budget for the policy is likely to shrink slightly in real terms from 2014 to 2020, as compared to its current scale of around D 45billion per year. Drawing ideas from the ‘CAP 2020’ collection of Member State and stakeholder discussion documents (IEEP, 2009–2010), and setting it in the context of the EU2020 vision for sustainable growth (CEC, 2010), it seems likely that the future shape of the policy will coalesce around three main strands: environment; food and energy market management; and investment for rural development. These elements are identified as important by protagonists on both sides of the CAP debate (HM Treasury and Defra, 2005; French government, 2008). In respect of European Cohesion policy (the Structural Fund programmes and Regional development), which currently accounts for almost as large a budget as that for the CAP, an increased emphasis upon supporting only the less developed regions within an enlarged EU is expected, which implies little or no continuing EU

funding for these purposes within the UK. Thus as we move through the next two EU funding periods, the remaining influence of EU regional thinking, which has hitherto been significant in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, would seem likely to diminish. What is less clear is whether the dominant ethos of future EU rural policy will be one of cohesion or competition; that is, whether the policies overall, including CAP, will develop a stronger emphasis upon helping mainly the poorest rural regions, or whether they will remain, as now, significant across the whole EU-27 rural territory. Within the UK this will affect how money is targeted at the regional (i.e. the four UK ‘countries’) and sub-regional scales. Beyond 2030, if the medium-term direction of travel is maintained, it could be anticipated that pillar 2 rural development could come to dominate the CAP budget, perhaps accounting for around 70 per cent of EU spending on the policy, and that it will be flanked by additional, targeted national aid to the farm sector, but mainly in countries for which the protection of agriculture is still seen as an important goal, for example including France, Poland, Finland and some of southern Europe. In these circumstances, the UK would be unlikely to offer such aid, given its enduring liberalising policy stance towards the sector (HM Treasury and Defra, 2005), which has survived more than 20 years of changing government. Within the CAP, a dominant focus upon funding for environmental management and ecosystem services is likely to be accompanied by continuing investment in sustainable businesses, farm development in the poorest regions, and innovation, to enable more effective marketing of the EU’s diverse rural territory and its products. However, as a result of non-CAP global policy and market trends, food prices are likely to be relatively buoyant; and energy prices also, which will maintain the current emphasis of commercial rural land use upon these two kinds of production. Thus, the CAP alone would seem unlikely to trigger major land-use changes within the UK at least up to, say, 2040. However, increasing exposure to more liberalised markets for farm produce could bring some particular challenges, discussed in the next section. International trade agreements and implications Since the first Agreement on Agriculture as part of the Uruguay round General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1992, international decisions have increasingly affected farming within the EU (CEC, 2007). Despite current differences between the major stakeholder groups, the Doha Development Round of international trade negotiations was anticipated to be agreed in 2010 (Josling, 2007) or more likely 2011/2012, following the resumption of detailed negotiations at the end of 2009. Doha promises a slow, further liberalisation of agricultural markets in the developed world, enabling increased access for major exporters to EU markets (e.g. Brazil, USA, Australasia). It seems likely also to perpetuate a level of international influence upon the precise form and scale of remaining supports to EU agriculture, despite the progress made with decoupling (Cardwell and Rodgers, 2006; Potter and Tlizey, 2007). As a result of greater liberalisation, more competition within the EU will increase the relative competitive disadvantage of farming in the most marginal areas of the UK. While most medium to longterm predictions of world food prices suggest that these should remain buoyant, it would seem unlikely that the most remote and climatically harsh areas of this country would become as favoured for basic commodity production as they were during the highly protectionist era of the 1970s and 1980s, in Europe. Thus, greater relative sectoral disadvantage could further destabilise an already declining future for traditional hill farming (National Trust, 2005; Exmoor Society, 2008; Commission for Rural Communities, 2008; Dwyer et al., 2010). Upland management for food might then be replaced by much more extensive management regimes, where

J. Dwyer / Land Use Policy 28 (2011) 674–683

ecosystem storage (water and carbon) and leisure-use values have become more important than those of livestock production. Despite current ‘de facto’ barriers to this within the EU, it also seems likely that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) will become more used within UK lowland landscapes as international competitive pressure and newfound concern for food security come to bear upon arable farming and horticulture, in particular. Notable shifts in a previously antagonistic position on GMOs can already be detected in the UK press, as well as within prominent reports, since the food price spike of 2007–2008 (e.g. Chatham House, 2009). Higher transport costs, as a result of anticipated rising world oil prices and international fiscal measures such as a tax on air transport (see the discussion on climate policy, below) could reduce the volume of fresh produce air-freighted; which would mean that international trade in agricultural products would increasingly be focused upon shipped materials. Nevertheless, the EU is likely to export more foodstuffs to China and perhaps Africa, although this is dependent upon the rate of development of the African continent. Based upon the WTO’s past record, a further trade round beyond Doha could well commence around 2018 or so, for completion perhaps a decade later. However, whether such drawn-out and necessarily cumbersome1 mechanisms for multilateral decisionmaking on trade will persist, particularly in the light of other international policy priorities such as climate change, security and financial management, could be questioned. If the process is not continued, it would seem likely that major trading blocs will rely increasingly upon bilateral bargaining to secure their interests, in which case a less liberal EU marketplace for farm products could be anticipated beyond 2020, once the EU’s anticipated Doha commitments are fully applied. Environmental legislation Generally speaking, most environmental legislation is slow to be produced, negotiated and implemented, as previously discussed. But eventually it comes to have a much wider influence over decisions than might have been immediately apparent (Haigh, 2009). Thus major policies agreed most recently, such as the Water Framework Directive, may focus their actions on targets for 2015, but it is already apparent that these targets will remain central for probably a decade beyond this date. Likewise, policies which are currently under discussion (such as the EU Soils Framework Directive) might, if agreed, only begin to affect land use decision-making beyond the 2013 horizon and have their greatest impact after 2020. Policies which are currently active, such as the Nitrates Directive and the Habitats and Birds Directives, could take a further 10 or 20 years to result in measurable change in the quality and extent of ecosystems. Furthermore, policy-makers are already discussing the need for newer, more climate-flexible biodiversity policies beyond the Natura 2000 network, to enable wildlife to accommodate the impacts of global warming through migration or adaptation (Expert interview 1). Within the territory affected by the Natura 2000 network, the quality of environmental planning and management should improve gradually over the next decade, through stronger government regulation combined with an increasing share of EU resources. However, wider countryside biodiversity will be affected by changing climate and population pressures, as new housing and recycling facilities take more agricultural land; and some marginal land moves from production into leisure use. The protection of heritage is likely to be strengthened by gradual implementation

1 Because of the need to broker consensus among an increasing number and variety of member countries.

679

of the European Landscapes Convention and, in parallel, greater EU involvement in this area through the ‘entrée’ provided by rural development policy. Stronger regulatory mechanisms from the EU imply that fewer active substances will be used in agricultural pest management in future decades and fewer new products will come onto the market (Defra, 2009a). In respect of waste policy, most landfill should cease within the next decade. This implies more use of land for recycling installations and infrastructure for sorting, storage and reprocessing. It also suggests more incineration of wastes, coupled with the capture and use of the energy and residues that this process generates (Expert interview 4). ‘New kids on the block’: climate change and energy policy Compared to other non-policy drivers, climate change itself is regarded as a relatively minor potential influence upon UK land use to 2060 (Rounsevell and Reay, 2009). But in strong contrast, the policies implemented to reduce the scale of climate change and to adapt to, or mitigate, its effects seem likely to be much more important in this respect. The publication in December 2008 of the Committee on Climate Change’s first report (CCC, 2008) signalled the start of a significant phase of policy development in this new area, and the passing of the Climate Change Act 2008, which sets a highly ambitious target of an 80 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions on 1990 levels by 2050, is particularly significant. Through these vehicles, key targets for medium-term policy action have been set, in the form of UK carbon budgets for 2008–2012, 2013–2017 and 2018–2022. The Committee states that ‘decarbonisation of the power sector is key’ to achieving these targets, and spells out how this should be achieved through increased use of renewables, more nuclear power, and the application of Carbon Capture and Storage technology to coal-fired power generation. This means that between now and 2060, a whole range of new policies will most likely be developed to encourage these largescale sectoral shifts. Among this range, it seems inevitable that UK land use will be affected in several ways. One can anticipate new policies encouraging land to be used for renewable energy production and generation, as part of a broader strategy to shift energy dependence away from largely non-domestic oil and gas. The likely medium-term shift in renewables towards ‘second generation’ biofuels (post-2015: CEC, 2007) should also see new policy action to facilitate more woodfuel, biogas and other waste-related production at home, as well as overseas. There is likely to be energy cropping encouraged by EU Rural Development funding, as well as increased use of waste products from agri-food and forestry sectors, as tighter environmental regulation discourages their disposal in landfill or at sea. Hydro-electricity also seems very likely to regain policy support, alongside the development and exploitation of wave and tidal energy generation. These shifts imply the growth of new, probably rural, power generation plants located near physical concentrations of these stocks, i.e. close to large areas of woodland, forest, water and coasts, as well as near existing major food processing and waste storage and treatment plants including abattoirs, mills, sewage works and the largest or most concentrated areas of dairy farms (southwest parts of England, Scotland and Wales). Policy is also likely to incentivise new coal-fired power stations incorporating Carbon Capture and Storage technology. There will be EU-funded UK piloting of these systems within the next decade, through which outstanding issues including the safe storage of carbon dioxide, probably in former North Sea oil or gas wells, should be addressed (Expert interview 1). At the same time, the development of more wind and solar power generation will require land, as well as new infrastructure which is more decentralised, with

680

J. Dwyer / Land Use Policy 28 (2011) 674–683

impacts upon landscapes and the development of supporting service economies in rural areas. While the main policy instruments driving these trends at national and international levels will most likely be market-based or market-linked (carbon emissions permits and trading systems, as well as preferential feed-in tariffs), the physical development of plant and infrastructure will rely upon planning and enabling through development control policy. By inference, therefore, this becomes the arena in which environmental quality conflicts of value will be contested: the renewable and carbon-neutral value of wind turbines versus their visual impact; the sustainable resource management values of anaerobic digestion versus the local health and safety issues associated with its use, including the stockpiling of biological wastes as well as noise; the tidal energy potential of the Severn Tidal Power Scheme versus the habitats of wading birds, and so on. One final area where concerns about carbon may result in direct policy impacts upon land-use and management is in respect of the protection and management of upland peat. Peat represents one of the largest UK carbon stores; thus, preventing peat erosion through inappropriate land management should become a heightened policy concern in future. As evolving carbon trading or water protection measures seem likely to incorporate an incentive for corporate action in this field, large-scale upland protection projects, such as the ‘Scamp’ initiative currently supported by United Utilities in Lancashire (Crawshaw and Taylor, 2007), will become more widespread, facilitated by changing attitudes and policy positions among the utility regulators. The pursuit of a lower carbon economy may also have indirect, but still notable, effects on land use. One might be to stimulate the domestic production of more exotic crops, for instance, if the EU increases taxes on air transport. Considering new policy responses to climate change impacts upon land, the long-term predictions for the UK imply increased flooding. This suggests that policies will need to promote more strategic land use to enable sustainable flood management, such as landscape-scale projects which create sacrificial areas for flooding in order to save others. Funding via Lottery, EU regional and LIFE sources, combined with the resources of major landholders such as the National Trust, the Duchy of Cornwall and the water companies, could enable these developments. On the other hand, it remains debatable whether the current arrangements for development control can resist continuing pressure to develop on floodplains and other hydrologically important areas of land. Food and health policy, including bio-security issues These are areas of policy which are currently being newly scoped and developed in an explicit way, following a relatively long period in which they have arguably not been a government priority. Longterm trends in these areas have been identified as a cause for policy concern; most notably the link between diet, ill-health and the implications for public expenditure and the economy. The Cabinet Office Strategy Unit report on food and food policy (Cabinet Office, 2008) argued the case for developing a more explicit policy which embraced food from its production to its impacts in respect of public health, climate change and sustainability, and government has responded in 2010 with a new Food policy (Defra, 2010). Meanwhile, the Chatham House report on food (Chatham House, 2009) has added further calls for concerted policy action. New policy seems likely to encourage changes in consumer choices, through labelling and education as well as work with supermarkets and other major food sector stakeholders. These policies could have indirect effects on agricultural production, such as more domestic production and consumption of fruit and vegetables, as well as increased diversification of domestic cereal and other crops. The

consumption of health cereals such as oats has already stimulated a significant expansion of this crop in the past 20 years (Dwyer and Taylor, 2007), and others may be anticipated, including Spelt, Rye, and Soybean. Policy and market trends taken together suggest the development of ‘new’ health foods, spawning new food technologies and associated rural infrastructure, for example using green wastes on farms to culture beneficial fungi and bacteria for use in processed foods. Also, there should be a changed approach to disease control in both animals and plants, learning lessons from the Foot and Mouth and BSE epidemics of the past decade, the current initiatives in respect of Bovine TB, and preparations for more in future, as a result of changing climate and increased international trade. Less standardised and more risk-based biosecurity plans on farms and within the food chain may be needed, in the next decade. This would require more explicit partnership between health regulators and the industry, and rapid response units to deal with an anticipated increase in epidemics. Routine livestock vaccinations and more IT surveillance on farms also seem likely. This could require increased co-operation between landowners and managers through new forms of collective institution focused on biosecurity (Expert interview 3).

Combined impacts and implications for governance and policy This section draws upon the analysis in “Key challenges and future prospects” to consider the overall framework of policy arising from this combination of challenges and directions of travel. As such, it is necessarily more generalised than the preceding text. Some relevant studies, notably EC-funded scenario work, also offer largely consistent analyses and are therefore briefly covered, at this point. In the near past, agriculture and spatial planning policies have probably had the greatest policy influence on UK land use. In future, other areas of policy will have a much more significant role than hitherto. Energy generation and climate change, environment and food and health policies seem to be particularly important. But, as the previous section has highlighted, it will be the interaction between these new policies and the evolution of continuing spatial planning/development control and agri-trade policy measures that will critically shape their effects upon UK land use, on the ground. This is, of course, in addition to the continuing and potentially equally dramatic impacts of non-policy drivers, only some of which have been considered here. The spatial pattern of new development seems likely to become less peri-urban and more diffuse across the UK (although market influences are likely to contribute to stronger development pressures in the south-east than the north and west). As a result of this diffusion, policy making in rural land use must become more multifunctional in spirit, and policy approaches will increasingly need to enable this, in practice (Expert interview 3). Critical questions remain about the nature of change, at both the extensive margin and the intensive margin, in respect of demands for land use. There is a possibility that, without significant new interventionist policy instruments, the more remote and less productive areas of the country will be less populated and much less managed than at present, while pressures on the land near to infrastructure and existing settlements will be multiple and severe. As reviewed in “Land use policy data and trends”, rural policy has moved from a relatively centralised and sectoral model 60 years ago to one which is much more locally varied and dependent upon the twin themes of strategic partnership and stakeholder involvement. However, the commitment to local involvement in policymaking

J. Dwyer / Land Use Policy 28 (2011) 674–683

could potentially be in tension with the need for major changes at national and international levels. There is increasing focus upon (despite frustrations with) transnational strategic action in areas as diverse as climate, energy, peacekeeping and defence, as well as the established arena of trade and development. The financial crisis of 2008/2009 has fostered more global approaches to economic regulation and recovery, and these seem likely to develop further. In the face of recent disappointments and lack of progress in explicit international negotiating fora such as the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference and ongoing Doha ‘stalemate’, it may be that concerted policy action takes place more through parallel and complementary actions by the main trading blocks or nations, following agendas only loosely ‘agreed’ in international discussions, as we are seeing in 2010 in respect of the banking crisis. Looking ahead, these pressures might imply a ‘hollowing out’ of the autonomy and relative importance of the nation state in policy making. However, this does not imply the disappearance of national government; indeed, the current international debates appear to emphasise a continuing critical need for this ‘middle’ layer to negotiate, manage, interpret and frame the transmission of governance ideas and mechanisms, between international and local levels. UK-level or region-specific (to Wales, Scotland, England and Northern Ireland) policies therefore seem likely to remain very important. In all this, the capacity of the current UK approach to development control seems increasingly likely to be challenged by the targets and instruments of other policy areas, particularly climate/energy generation, minerals and sustainable environmental management. The policy response to these challenges could well prove a decisive influence upon future land use, whether piecemeal or more holistic; centralised or devolved; and with what forms of societal involvement. In rural policy, one might ask whether the partnership approach will survive. Increasingly, local funds and initiatives are delivered through public-private actions involving ‘those in the know’, both elected and unelected ‘lead figures’ in each region; which may induce a backlash by disaffected groups. At the same time, heavy local partnerships can be a recipe for policy inertia and conservatism, a criticism levelled at the spatial planning system (Expert interviews 3 and 4). Central state imperatives to ‘cut government’ following the 2010 general election, could herald a more lasting diminished and simpler domestic policy landscape. In the Scenar 2020 study for the Agriculture Directorate-General (DG) of the European Commission, the authors discuss how the emerging patterns of rural livelihoods and agricultural production in Europe are ‘perhaps becoming increasingly independent of the effect that policy has on ordering social, economic and environmental welfare. A plurality of policy responsibilities also exists, and coherence requires a degree of co-ordination that is creating new challenges to political bodies.’ (CEC, 2007, Chapter 1, p. 12). In the ESPON studies for DG Regio of the European Commission (CEC, 2006), two prospective policy scenarios up to 2030 were developed and evaluated. One assumed a ‘cohesion-oriented’ scenario ‘where policies are formulated with the goal of social, economic and territorial cohesion as top priority’ (CEC, 2006, Executive summary p. 1), whereas in a contrasting ‘competitiveness’ scenario, policies were aligned to the goal of promoting European competitiveness. In assessing the outcomes of the exercise, the report’s authors note that ‘whatever policy is chosen, the driving forces will inevitably have more influence in shaping our regions.. the major task for policy makers is, therefore, not to try to stop any of these from happening, but rather to help European regions prepare and adapt’ (Executive summary, p. 15) Perhaps more interestingly, they also judge that ‘most territorial goals cannot be realised without substantive investments in non-territorial policies’, explained as environmental and human capital investment,

681

promoting more sustainable transport and redistributing wealth to maintain ‘healthy’ consumer markets for European products. They also make suggestions to promote a more systemic treatment of different needs, from social segregation to affordable infrastructure and sensitive environmental management, largely working through more integrated territorial planning and new urban–rural governance institutions. What these two scenarios suggest in respect of the future for policy in respect of rural land use across Europe, is that it could be required to become more directly responsive to the combined impact of non-policy drivers, and more ready to make significant investments for the longer term, than hitherto. At the same time, they acknowledge the need for better co-ordination and increased sensitivity to territorial aspects of rural development, enabling locally integrated but spatially differentiated responses. To some extent, these two themes echo the previous discussion about the challenges within the UK policy arena.

Conclusions Looking ahead at the developing policy landscape for UK land use, one can see an increasing need for policies to reconcile top down, international and strategic needs and trends with the nowembedded ethos of local partnership and stakeholder consultation in rural governance. The way in which reconciliation occurs will surely vary across the UK, reflecting our ‘differentiated countryside’ (Lowe et al., 2003), changing urban–rural relationships in ‘city-regions’ (DCLG, 2009) and the differing governance systems of the nations of the UK. Community versus landowner interests are likely to figure more strongly in debates in Scotland and the north of England, perhaps, than in the more ‘contested’, urbanised or multifunctional countrysides of the south-east. In Wales and the west of England, a strong tendency for rural land-use partnership is evident within local governance processes, as seen in the Welsh approach to rural development policy (Dwyer et al., 2009) and established initiatives such as the South-West Chamber of Rural Enterprise, the Marches woodland initiative and Rural Hubs in the West Midlands. In some locations, the power of particular farsighted individuals, major estates and inspirational rural ‘leaders’, is also evident (Duchy of Cornwall, National Trust, Clinton Devon Estates, John Gilliland in Northern Ireland), as well as growing biodynamic and community-supported agriculture movements and the most recent phenomenon of ‘transition’ (i.e. . . .to zerocarbon footprint) initiatives, which are now moving from their original ‘transition towns’ concept into a more diverse range of forms including rural territories and rural resource management. This suggests a future of diverse local response to significant global challenge, in which it becomes difficult to assess whether the overall outcome will be effective. Virtually ‘independent’ miniterritories could develop, in situations of either enthusiastic uptake of new sustainable and low-carbon planning, technologies and lifestyles, or of outright resistance to change, by contrast. At the same time, new policy mechanisms could be developed by the centre to drive changes forward. This might involve permits, audits, funding schemes and new forms of competition (for resources or institutional rewards) for lower tiers of government, as well as more strategic planning, to provide the frameworks within which these new tools must operate. Either large-scale and highprofile new development decisions, or a complete overhaul of some key areas of societal infrastructure (e.g. for energy, wastes, water and transport) would appear to be on the agenda, but their success will be heavily dependent upon political ability to enthuse and inspire wider society to support such moves–something which might have been much easier to achieve in the post-war period

682

J. Dwyer / Land Use Policy 28 (2011) 674–683

than it is now, given a widespread culture of political apathy and cynicism. Whether these encroaching policy demands are able to build upon any successes from recent and current governments’ renewed efforts to increase public concern and meaningful involvement in policy-making at more strategic levels, as in the current administration’s ‘big society’ agenda, remains to be seen. There are, of course, dangers in using the analysis of past and current phenomena, even over the fairly long timescales reviewed in this paper, to attempt to predict future trends and pinpoint key needs. This was recognised in the discussions contributing to this paper. In respect of all these issues, it could be argued that the rather unique juxtaposition of contemporary global ‘phenomena’ (peak oil, climate change, international financial turmoil and global recession) may create a larger disjuncture between historic and future policy than has been the case in the past 50 years. It could be argued that this challenging mix implies more fundamental shifts in policy priorities, making incremental change less likely than it has been hitherto and raising the possibility of radical policy shifts within the next few decades (Expert 2). To that extent, therefore, the assumptions in the approach used to develop this paper, as explained in “Research method”, might prove insufficient and one might conclude that all we can be sure of is our own uncertainty about the road ahead. However, it is this author’s contention that a concerted attempt to learn from medium-term policy history (meaning over several decades, as opposed to the politicians’ concentration upon the previous 5 years), to understand contemporary institutional and political behaviour and to consider its future capacity, can be a valuable ingredient in effective foresight planning.

References Baldock, D., Dwyer, J., Sumpsi-Vinas, J., 2002. Environmental Integration and the CAP. European Commission, DG Agriculture, CEC, Brussels. Barlow, M., 1940. Report of the Royal Commission on the Distribution of the Industrial Population, Cmd 6153, HMSO, London. Body, S.R., 1982. Agriculture: The Triumph and the Shame. Avebury, UK. Bowers, R., Cheshire, P., 1983. Agriculture, the Countryside and Land Use. Methuen. British Geological Survey, 2008, Research reports on aggregate minerals in England. http://www.bgs.ac.uk/mineralsuk/free downloads/home.html#aggregates. Burgess, S., 2007. Report of the Rural Advocate. CRC, Cheltenham. Cabinet Office, 2008. Food Matters: Towards a Strategy for the 21st Century. HMSO, London. Cardwell, M., Rodgers, R., 2006. Reforming the WTO legal order for agricultural trade: issues for European rural policy in the Doha round. International and Comparative Law Quarterly 55, 805–838. Chatham House, 2009. In: Ambler-Edwards, S., Bailey, K., Kiff, A., Lang, T., Lee, R., Marsden, T., Simons, D., Tibbs, H. (Eds.), Food Futures: Rethinking UK Strategy. Chatham House, London. Commission for Rural Communities, 2008. An inquiry into the future for England’s upland communities Summary Note, 2nd December, the Commission, Cheltenham. Commission of the European Communities, 2006. ESPON Project 3.2 Spatial Scenarios and Orientations in relation to the ESDP and Cohesion Policy. Final Report, October 2006. CEC, Brussels. Commission of the European Communities, 2006a. EU Strategic Guidelines for Rural Development under the EAFRD. CEC, Brussels. Commission of the European Communities, 2007. Scenar 2020: Scenario Study on Agriculture and the Rural World. CEC, Brussels. Commission of the European Communities, 2010. Communication from the Commission: Europe 2020 - A Strategy for Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive Growth. COM (2010) 2020. CEC, Brussels. Committee on Climate Change, 2008. Building a Low Carbon Economy: The First Report of the Committee. December 2008. HMSO, London. Crawshaw, D., Taylor, R., 2007. The role of markets & the industry in securing future environmental outputs. Presentation of the United Utilities/RSPB SCAMP project. Conference proceedings: Future policies for rural Europe 2013 and beyond – delivering sustainable rural land management in a changing Europe. Land Use Policy Group, UK. www.lupg.org. Curry, N., 2008. Inaugural Lecture ‘W(h)ither Rural: New Canons for Old?’. CCRI, Cheltenham. Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), 2009a. Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council Concerning the Placing of Plant Protection Products on the Market. Summary Impact Assessment. Defra/HMSO, London.

Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), 2009a. CAP reform. http://www.defra.gov.uk/farm/policy/capreform/index.htm. Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), 2010. Food 2030. HMSO, London. Department of Communities and Local Government, 2008. Minerals policy review. http://www.communities.gov.uk/planningandbuilding/planningbuilding/ planningresearch/researchreports/mineralswasteresearch/aggregatessupply/. Department of Communities and Local Government, 2009. What Do We Mean by City-Regions? http://www.communities.gov.uk/citiesandregions/cities/ cityregionswhy/. Dwyer, J., Hodge, I.D., 2001. The challenge of change: demands and expectations for farmed land. In: Smout, T.C. (Ed.), Nature, Landscapes and People Since the Second World War. Tuckwell Press, East Lothian. Dwyer, J., Boatman, N., 2006. Obs 04 Summary Report: the environmental implications of the 2003 CAP reforms in England. Report to Defra ACEO. Defra, London. Dwyer, J., Taylor, J., 2007. UK Case study, for Alliance Environnement: Évaluation de l’impact sur l’environnement des OCM et des mesures de soutien direct de la PAC relatives au cultures arables. Study for DG Agriculture of the European Commission. http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/eval/index en.htm#rep1. Dwyer, J., 2007. The State of the Rural Environment in Europe: What Challenges and Opportunities for Future Policies? Keynote Paper at the LUPG Conference: 2013 and Beyond: Future Policies for Rural Europe, Brussels, September 2007. Dwyer, J., Ward, N., Lowe, P., Baldock, D., 2007. European rural development under the common agricultural Policy’s ‘Second Pillar’: institutional conservatism and innovation. Regional Studies 41.7, 1–15. Dwyer, J., Kirwan, J., Thomson, K., Pereira, S., 2009. RuDI – Rural Development Impacts, Work package on Policy Design: The UK Report. www.RuDI-europe.net. Dwyer, J., Condliffe, I., Short, C., Pereira, S., 2010. RuDI – Rural Development Impacts, WP8 Case studies: The Case of the English Uplands. www.RuDI-europe.net. Exmoor Society, 2008. What Future for the Uplands? Campaign document launched May 2008, Dulverton. Fennell, R., 1997. The Common Agricultural Policy. Clarendon. French Government, 2008. What’s the Best Way to Prepare the CAP of the Future? Discussion Paper Prepared by the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union, Brussels. MAF, Paris. Fuller-Love, N., Midmore, P., Thomas, D., Henley, A., 2006. Entrepreneurship and rural economic development: a scenario analysis approach. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research 12 (5), 289–305. Gallant, N., 2009. The Future of Housing and Homes. Poster prepared for the foresight exercise, January 2009. Grant, W., 1997. The Common Agricultural Policy (European Union). Palgrave Macmillan. Haigh, N. (Ed.), 2009. A Manual of Environmental Policy in the EU and Britain. Elsevier, London. Halfacree, K., 1994. The importance of the rural in the constitution of counterurbanisation: evidence from England in the 1980s. Sociologica Ruralis 34, 164– 189. Hall, P., 1985. Urban and Regional Planning , 2nd edn. Unwin Hyman, UK. Hertin, J., Turnpenny, J., Nilsson, M., Russel, D., Nykvist, B., 2009. Rationalising the policy mess? Ex ante policy assessment and the utilization of knowledge in the policy process. Environment and Planning A 41, 1185–1200. Humphries, A.C., Keeble, S., 2008. Recent planning complications for Combined Heat and Power generators. In: RICS Roots Conference , Cirencester. Hutton, W., 1995. The State We’re In: Why Britain is in Crisis and How to Overcome it. Jonathan Cape, London. HMSO, 2009. Land Use Futures: UK Foresight Report. HM Treasury and the Department of the Environment Food and Rural Affairs, 2005. A Vision for the Common Agricultural Policy, HMSO, Norwich, December, ISBN: 1-84532r-r111-1. IEEP (Institute for European Environmental Policy), 2009–2010. CAP2020 website: www.ieep.eu. Ison, R.L., 2008. Systems thinking and practice for action research. In: Reason, P.W., Bradbury, H. (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Action Research Participative Inquiry and Practice. , 2nd edn. Sage Publications, London, UK, pp. 139–158. Josling, T., 2007. Guest Editorial, Eurochoices special issue vol. 6, issue 3: the Doha Trade Talks. Land Use Policy special edition 26, 2009, Land Use Futures. Lowe, P., Marsden, T., Murdoch, J., Ward, N., 2003. The Differentiated Countryside. Routledge, Studies in Human Geography, London. Lowe, P., Ward, N., 2009. England’s rural futures: a socio-geographical approach to scenarios analysis. Regional Studies 43 (10), 1319–1332. Munton, R., 2009. Rural land ownership in the United Kingdom: changing patterns and future possibilities for land use. Land Use Policy 26 (Suppl. 1), S54– S61. National Trust, 2005. Impact of CAP Reform on the English Uplands. A National Trust Discussion Paper. NT, Swindon. Nature Conservancy Council, 1984. Nature Conservation in Great Britain. NCC, Peterborough. Newby, H., 1991. The Future of Rural Society: Strategic Planning or Muddling Through? The Dartington Lecture, November, Dartington Hall. Neville-Rolfe, E., 1984. The Politics of Agriculture in the European Community. Policy Studies Institute, London. Owen, S., Moseley, M., 2003. Putting parish plans in their place: relationships between community-based initiatives and development planning in English Villages. Town Planning Review 74 (4), 445–471.

J. Dwyer / Land Use Policy 28 (2011) 674–683 Owens, S., Rayner, T., Bina, O., 2004. New agendas for appraisal: reflections on theory, practice, and research. Environment and Planning A 36, 1943–1959. Power, A., 2009. The role of land use planning in creating communities and social cohesion. Poster prepared for the Foresight exercise, January 2009. Potter, C., Tlizey, M., 2007. Agricultural multifunctionality, environmental sustainability and the WTO: Resistance or accommodation to the neoliberal project for agriculture? Geoforum 38, 1290–1303. Ringland, G., 2002. Scenarios in Public Policy. John Wiley and Sons, Chichester. Rounsevell, M., Reay, D., 2009. Land use and climate change in the UK. Land Use Policy 26 (Suppl. 1), S160–S169. Schneider, A.L., Ingram, H., 1999. Policy Design for Democracy. University of Kansas press. Scott, Lord Justice, 1942. Report of the Committee on land Utilisation in Rural Areas. Cmnd 6378, HMSO, London.

683

Scottish Government, 2008. Committee of Inquiry on Crofting: Government Response. October 2008, Edinburgh. Shoard, M., 1980. The Theft of the Countryside. Temple Smith, UK. Shucksmith (Chair), M., 2008. Committee of Inquiry on Crofting. Final Report. Crown Copyright 2008. Blackwells, Edinburgh. Kaditi, E., Swinnen, J. (Eds.), 2007. Trade agreements, multifunctionality and EU agriculture. Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Brussels. Taylor, M., 2008. Living Working Countryside-The Taylor Review of Rural Economy and Affordable Housing. DCLG, London. Ward, N., Lowe, P., 2007. Blairite Modernisation and Countryside Policy. The Political Quarterly 78 (3), July–September. Winter, M., 2006. Rescaling rurality: multilevel governance of the agro-food sector. Political Geography 25 (7), 735–751.