West Midlands uplands being let down in recession

Mar 24 2009 Agenda by Dr Stuart Burgess, Birmingham Post

Stuart Burgess says an unacknowledged part of the Midlands is being left behind by technology.

Technology is something many of us take for granted these days, with the internet seeping into every corner of our existence and up-to-the-second information available at our fingertips.

Many of us – perhaps those of a certain age – now wonder how we ever coped before the expanding array of communications channels began to multiply.

It would be fair to say that, by and large, the benefits of technology in our lives far outweigh any negatives. However, our increasing dependence on technology is threatening to cause problems in the Midlands’ rural uplands. Quite simply, the technological revolution is leaving behind thousands of people in isolated rural communities.

Many people are surprised when I tell them that high hills and moorland account for just under a fifth of the area of England and the communities that live there are vital to the health and economic prosperity of millions across the country.

The West Midlands is remarkable in that, while it is predominantly flat, the region has some truly spectacular upland areas – including parts of Herefordshire, Shropshire and Staffordshire.

Indeed, one of the major selling points of the region is the natural beauty of uplands such as the Staffordshire Moorlands and the Shropshire Hills, with many of the movers and shakers who work by day in Birmingham and our other cities choosing to live in these areas because of the quality of life – and spectacular landscape – they afford.

The Commission for Rural Communities, of which I am chairman, is undertaking the biggest inquiry into the health and future of England’s uplands, on behalf of the Prime Minister.

Meeting people in upland communities around the country and here in the West Midlands, I have had the chance to hear just how businesses and people who live in these communities feel, particularly as the effects of the recession continue to bite.

Already, some patterns are developing with one of the overriding messages being that some of the traditional barriers that face businesses and communities are set to be heightened if uplands are left behind in terms of technology.

Reduced services, lower incomes, an ageing population, a diminishing retail sector, increasing unemployment and the prospect of valuable skills being lost forever are constant concerns for people in rural communities.

Add this to the major challenge of maintaining rural schools and restrictions with public transport and the picture of rural life is often a bleak one.However, if rural areas in general are suffering, the upland communities are very often dealt an even harsher hand.

The technological revolution that the vast majority of us are able to enjoy is often leaving the remote, upland areas behind. Mobile phone coverage, let alone third-generation coverage, is very often patchy, if not non-existent while broadband availability thins, the greater the distance from telephone exchanges.

This is not simply about the convenience of being able to use a mobile phone or use social networking sites such as Facebook from rural areas; there is a cold, hard economic aspect, as I hear time and time again from rural businesses. The effective running of a business without access to these services is increasingly difficult, if not impossible.

Furthermore, there are real concerns that the switchover from analogue to digital television in the next few years could leave people isolated and without access to important information such as news reports and weather forecasts.

Clearly, economics and market forces come into play and it is not difficult to understand why technology providers make the decisions they do.

I strongly believe that the technology providers – major corporations who make millions of pounds each year – should seek to ‘do the right thing’ by paying greater attention to remote rural areas. However, this is also where intervention from government is important.

I don’t believe that the rural areas of the West Midlands have yet seen the worst of the recession and I fear that the next six months could be even harder for many communities.

With this very much in mind, we need to ensure that the region’s villages and upland communities receive similar levels of assistance to the urban areas.

Indeed, it would be nice to think that the Government could show the same commitment to this cause as it did in baling out the banks.

Of course, as with anything, there are two sides to the story. Times are tough but there are exciting young businesses operating in upland areas and I have had the pleasure of seeing at first hand how they are bucking the trend and overcoming these challenges.

However, we need desperately to give these businesses every chance to succeed, to take advantage of the benefits of their rural location on the one hand while supporting them to overcome the barriers that this location also brings on the other.

Technology provides us all with significant opportunities to lead better and more enjoyable lives.

But these opportunities are not being enjoyed by everybody and, as is often the case, it is the rural areas that suffer the most.

I hope government will recognise the importance of supporting our upland communities and act quickly to ensure that the onset of the modern age does not leave them behind.

* Dr Stuart Burgess is chairman of the Commission for Rural Communities and the Government’s Rural Advocate.