Tag Archives: Community

A Charter for Rural Enterprise

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Jeremy Phillipson (School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development) considers rural enterprise, in the latest of our Ideas for an Incoming Government. His vision is a Charter for Rural Enterprise, protecting rural economies and allowing them to flourish.

Rural charter image

What is the problem?

We should be doing more with our rural enterprises. Rural areas contribute at least £211 billion a year directly to the nation’s economy but have great potential to achieve even more. Cuts in public spending and the need to rebalance the economy means that our expectations of what enterprise can achieve in employment, wealth creation and service provision have increased. We must, therefore, expect to see growth across the whole country rather than only in certain cities or sectors. The distinctive characteristics, business and employment structure and past performance of rural economies mean that they are well placed to meet this challenge. Through a new Charter for Rural Enterprise, we propose that an effective and transparent rural proofing of growth plans and policies be pushed forward across all business sectors and localities in order to tailor measures to rural conditions and assess their applicability to rural economies.

The solution

Rural areas have a number of dynamic features that enable economic growth:

  • They have more businesses per head of population than many urban areas.
  • Firms started by people moving into rural areas are more likely to sell their products and services on national and overseas markets, thus earning revenue beyond the locality.
  • Many manufacturing businesses are located in rural areas and this sector provides a higher proportion of rural jobs and output than are supported by urban manufacturing firms.
  • Rural economies have pioneered privatisation and community provision of many local services, fuelled by a combination of delivery and access difficulties and the distinctive nature of rural demand.
  • As the economic value and potential of ecosystems services are recognised these will offer increased opportunities for growth.
  • Rural economies have demonstrated their potential to provide more growth and employment if given appropriate stimuli and support from national and local business leaders and policy makers.

However rural growth measures have been more fully developed for the land-dependent sectors of farming, forestry, food and environmental services. Whilst these are important for the nation, in many rural areas we need to look to other sectors that are the primary engines for growth, for example in manufacturing, professional, scientific and technical sectors, and wholesale and retail. Through establishing a Charter for Rural Enterprise, rural economies would be treated as cross-cutting and more effectively embedded in mainstream policies and plans for economic development. This should include a commitment to:

  • Strategies for growth that respond to local variability of the spatial, sectoral and business size profiles of rural economies, and which drive resources to the local level through an approach that meets local constraints and opportunities of rural places. This would identify and respond to the diversity of growth challenges in rural industries. We also propose a review of the needs and opportunities for rural and home-based micro enterprises that have so far fallen beneath the radar of economic and enterprise policy.
  • Spatially-balanced and inclusive economic growth; to this end Impact Assessments should be prepared and published at national and sub-national level for economic plans and policies for areas larger than (lower tier) local authorities (for example City Deals, LEPs’ Strategic Economic Plans and European Structural and Investment Fund Strategies), to demonstrate their impacts on, and inclusiveness of rural areas.  Assessments would identify spatial or functional gaps in, and weaknesses of, policies and programmes, inform future resource allocations and encourage a sense of inclusiveness.
  • Demonstrating ways that rural firms can realise the value of the natural environment to their growth, by securing efficiencies and developing new products and services. We also propose a national review of the challenges and adaptation needs facing rural enterprises in responding to the pressures of environmental change.
  • Strengthening rural business and community institutions which form the bedrock of our rural firms and bolster their innovative capability and resilience; to this end we should build on the experience of the Rural Growth Networks to extend nationally the network of rural work hubs offering flexible work premises and access to shared facilities.  We suggest support for the establishment of rural business clubs and associations that provide rural business mentoring and strengthen the voice of rural business through establishing a National Rural Business Task Force to ensure that core business, financial and innovation policies are sensitive to rural needs.
  • Investment in affordable housing, public transport and local services which are essential for employee recruitment and new business development. In addition to providing meaningful support for building new housing or providing public transport in rural areas, financial help should be provided to small employers with hard-to-fill vacancies due to their area’s lack of affordable housing and poor public transport.  These barriers to employment and growth of small firms are particularly evident in remote rural locations, and local economies with poor connectivity and limited pools of skilled labour, exacerbated by low stock of low cost housing.  The Government should explore how tax reliefs or direct payments can be extended to measures taken by employers to help new employees’ access accommodation or transport to the workplace.

Overall, we need a new commitment to rural enterprise. This would entail more transparent proofing of national and local growth plans across all business sectors and localities. We need better engagement between stakeholders, to strengthen our understanding of rural business potential and to use this to inform strategic commitment to rural economies. Academia needs to play its part in filling the gap in independent rural analysis. This will allow us more firmly to take the pulse of rural economies as they respond to shocks, whether it be flooding, economic downturn or disease outbreak, and to more effectively assist their recovery to full health.

The evidence

  • Commission for Rural Communities (2011) Small towns in rural England.
  • Defra (2013) Statistical Digest of Rural England 2014
  • Defra (2010) Economic Growth and the Environment
  • Atterton, J. and Affleck, A. (2010) Rural Businesses in the North East of England: Final Survey Results.  Centre for Rural Economy Research Report.
  • Phillipson J et al. (2011) Rural Economies: Incubators and Catalysts for Sustainable Growth. Submission to Government’s Growth Review – Stage 2, Centre for Rural Economy and Relu.
  • Phillipson J and Turner R (2013) Rural Areas as Engines of Economic Growth. Rural Economy and Land Use Programme Policy and Practice Note no 41.
  • OECD Rural Policy Reviews: England, United Kingdom 2011

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Affordable housing: a fair deal for rural communities

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Professor Mark Shucksmith OBE, Director of the Newcastle University Institute for Social Renewal, considers the problem of providing affordable housing in rural areas, and presents the findings of the Rural Housing Policy Review group.

Cottage at Grasmere

It’s now 34 years since my first book, “No Homes For Locals?” was published. This worries me partly because this suggests I’m not as young as I used to be; but mainly it worries me because we have made so little progress in addressing the challenges of enabling people to live and work in the countryside which prompted me to write that book. There are severe housing difficulties throughout the UK, but rural areas face special difficulties. In the UK, uniquely, rural house prices are higher than in urban areas – in fact, 26% higher on average. The ratio of house prices to local earnings is even worse. And there is far less social housing (council housing and housing association housing) than in urban areas, not least due to Right to Buy sales going through the roof in recent decades.

For the last year I’ve worked with other experts as part of the Rural Housing Policy Review group, chaired by Lord Best, to propose solutions to this challenge which acknowledge the current constraints on public spending. Last week we presented these at a launch in the House of Lords. Here is a summary of our proposals, the latest of our ‘Ideas for an Incoming Government’:

Because more sites are needed:

  1. Since the vast majority of rural schemes are on small sites, Government’s policy is to remove from local authorities the power to require affordable homes on sites of less than 10 homes. This must be reversed. Local Planning Authorities should require all sites, whatever their size, to make an affordable housing contribution. The level of this contribution – in cash or kind – will be determined by what works in the housing market of that area.
  2. Government should provide incentives to encourage land owners to develop rural affordable housing to meet local needs or to release sites for these homes, e.g. through tax incentives or nomination rights, which would also stimulate the local economy.
  3. Since local communities cannot properly influence what kind of development takes place without a Local Plan, Government should require all local authorities to complete their Local Plan preparation within two years

Because new homes must be affordable to local people:

  1. Government should exclude rural areas from the “spare room subsidy withdrawal” (commonly known as the ‘bedroom tax’) because there are so few opportunities for rural tenants in houses to move to 1 or 2 bedroom flats in villages; these households should not be forced to move away from their long-standing social and support networks to urban areas elsewhere.
  2. Where there are already problems from the low levels of affordable housing and limited opportunities to build any more, Government should give rural local authorities the power to suspend the Right to Buy scheme.
  3. To provide a driver for action and delivery by housing associations of all sizes, a new national target for delivery of rural housing through the Homes and Communities Agency should be established of 13% of the HCA’s national investment.
  4. To address problems of accessing development finance, Government should find ways of supporting the development funding of small and medium-sized builders and housing associations that undertake smaller developments: e.g. recalibrating its loan guarantee scheme to cover schemes of less than 25 homes.

Because affordable homes need to be there for future households:

  1. To ensure rents are affordable in low wage, high house price rural communities, Government should not require housing associations to charge so-called ‘affordable rents’ at 80% of market rental rate as a condition for receiving HCA funding. Instead, as in Greater London, rents should be charged at a level agreed between the local authority and the housing provider as being affordable in relation to local incomes.
  2. Where an area is experiencing high levels of second home ownership, Government should endorse the approach taken by the Exmoor National Park Authority, and in other places, by requiring a proportion of open market homes – up to a 100% in exceptional cases – to be granted planning permission with the condition that they can only be used as principal residences.
  3. Although those buying affordable homes on special terms need to be able easily to access a mortgage it is essential that they do not simply resell for a profit at a later date. The Council of Mortgage Lenders should, at long last, produce a standardised mortgage form for rural affordable home ownership which incorporates a ‘perpetuity’ arrangement.

Because leadership is needed from national to community level:

  1. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, as the champion for rural areas, should ensure ‘rural proofing’ is continuously and consistently applied to national policies, with specialist, rural technical expertise available to all Government departments.
  2. Because Neighbourhood Plans are a vital means for rural communities to deliver affordable homes, yet require resources and expertise, Government should increase and extend its support (beyond April 2015) for more communities to produce Neighbourhood Plans. And the Homes and Communities Agency should offer match funding to housing associations for the employment of Rural Housing Enablers who can play the key role in bringing together parish councils, land owners, local authorities and housing associations to achieve affordable rural homes.

There is more detail in our full report which you can download free here. The shortage of affordable rural housing is an issue not just for young people and others earning middle to low incomes; it has a wider significance as our countryside becomes ever more socially exclusive, a place where only rich people will be able to afford to live and in which most members of society can never be resident. This growing separation between rich and poor threatens our social solidarity and is far from ideas of ‘one nation’, espoused by successive governments.

Members of the Rural Housing Policy Review

Lord Richard Best OBE DL (Chair of the Rural Housing Policy Review)

Lord Matthew Taylor

Lord Ewen Cameron DL FRICS

Elinor Goodman

David Fursdon DL FRICS

Margaret Clark CBE

Sue Chalkley

Professor Mark Shucksmith OBE

Peter Moore

Peter Hetherington

Cllr Anne Hall

Jo Lavis (Secretary and member)

 

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Linking Higher Education and Local Communities

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In this blog series ‘Ideas for an Incoming Government’ Emeritus Professor John Goddard OBE, Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies, Newcastle University, writes about the role universities play within their communities.Civic uni

Many communities are facing difficult times in terms of slow growth, lack of jobs and entrenched poverty, but growing numbers now have links to one or more higher education institutions (HEIs). These can be ‘anchor institutions’, contributing to local job generation directly as an employer across a range of occupations and indirectly through new business formation, providing advice to existing businesses, attracting inward investment and developing skills in the local labour market.  They also can contribute to social cohesion through work with the community and voluntary sectors, with schools in deprived neighbourhoods and within the cultural and creative sectors. HEIs, working alongside the local public and private sector, can play a key leadership role in local civil society. We define such institutions as civic universities or colleges, tackling societal challenges on a local as well as global level, such as poverty, health, environmental sustainability and demographic change.

What is the problem?

Unfortunately the national and international higher education market place within which HEIs operate does not incentivise them to operate in this way and their potential as anchor institutions may not be fully realised. For most universities the highest priority is position in the national and international league tables. These are strongly influenced by academic research ratings and student satisfaction scores. Community engagement is relegated to a ‘third mission’ after research and teaching – by definition an inferior position. Colleges may be more locally involved but are not incentivised to be part of a local higher education system complementing the work of universities. And within the rapidly evolving market place there may be financial winners and losers; some institutions will struggle to attract sufficient numbers of students, particularly full fee-paying overseas applicants. This could leave them vulnerable to bankruptcy, with insufficient resources from the Funding Council to provide assistance. This problem could be especially acute in smaller cities with a weaker economic base, highly dependent on the university as an anchor institution.  In the future, regulation of this market must be sensitive to the contribution HEIs can make to meeting the needs of different places over and beyond the current focus solely on widening participation in higher education.

What is the solution?

To mobilise the full potential of HEIs we recommend a national fund is established, subscribed to from various central government departmental budgets to which HEIs wishing to be designated as civic institutions can have access. Such institutions should be required to introduce institution wide strategies for civic engagement embedded into teaching and research based on a self- assessment with the help of peers and partners.  HEIs in receipt of this funding should have a  civic university ‘contract’ with government defined in terms of delivery of local, national and international societal impacts.

In parallel, local authorities, LEPs and other centrally funded bodies such as Innovate UK and the Arts Council should be incentivised to establish formal partnership agreements with  HEIs designed to underpin their role in local social, economic, cultural and environmental development. Central government should establish a cross-departmental group to monitor the impact of universities as anchor institutions in local communities arising from a wide range of non-geographically specific policies (e.g. science, culture, health, immigration, trade). The group should establish a national leadership programme to develop a cadre of people with the boundary spanning skills to work in this area.

There are a range of current national policies that contribute to this agenda, such as HEFCE’s Higher Education Innovation and Catalyst funds, Innovate UK’s Catapults and RCUK’s Beacons of Public Engagement, but these lack any geographical specificity. More, therefore, needs to be done to formalise the link between universities local business and civil society in order to address societal challenges on a regional and national level.

The evidence

The OECD has gathered extensive evidence based on 40 case studies of the link between HEIs and city and regional development summarised in its report Higher Education and Regions: Globally Competitive, Locally Engaged. This work has informed a new European Commission guide on Connecting Universities to Regional Growth, which in turn has influenced many member states in mobilising universities to contribute to the design and delivery of their national and regional smart specialisation strategies.

Until recently, the focus of evidence gathering has been on the contribution of HEIs to business development but a recent large scale survey by the UK’s Innovation Research Centre (led by Cambridge and Imperial College) has demonstrated that the bulk of academic engagement has been with a much wider range of interest groups in civil society.

This has been confirmed by a survey of the intended impact of academic research in six universities in three English cities, carried out for a book on The University and the City[1]. In- depth interviews for this book have revealed significant contributions of universities to urban challenges of environmental sustainability, public health and cultural vitality made possible by regional funding streams that no longer exist.

Recent analysis linking the potential vulnerability of universities in the higher education market place has revealed some institutions to be located in vulnerable places highly dependent on HE. But in all these studies it is clear that civic engagement is not fully recognised and rewarded. Such evidence is leading to a re-appraisal of the triple helix model of universities working exclusively with business and government and instead to propose a quadruple helix model which embraces civil society and social as well as technological innovation.

[1] Goddard, J. and Vallance, P. (2013) The University and the City, (Routledge, London)

Notes to editors: The views stated are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Newcastle University.

Further Information

Recent Publications:

Goddard, J. and Vallance, P. (2013) The University and the City, (Routledge, London)

 Articles in refereed Journals:

  • Goddard, J and Puukka, J. (2008) ‘The engagement of higher education institutions in regional development: an overview of the opportunities and challenges’ Higher Education Management and Policy 20, (2) p. 11-42
  • Goddard, J., Vallance, P. and Puukka, J. (2011) ‘Experience of engagement between universities and cities: drivers and barriers in three European cities’, Built Environment 37, (3), p.299-316.
  • Goddard, J., Robertson, D. and Vallance, P. (2012) ‘Universities, Technology and Innovation Centres, and regional development: the case of the North East of England’, Cambridge Journal of Economics 36, (3), p.609-627
  • Goddard, J., Kempton, L. and Vallance, P. (2013) ‘Universities and Smart Specialisation: challenges, tensions, and opportunities for the innovation strategies of European regions’, Ekonomiaz  38, (2), p. 82-101.
  • Goddard, J., Coombes, M., Kempton L. and Vallance, P (2014) ‘Universities as anchor institutions in cities in a turbulent funding environment: vulnerable institutions and vulnerable places in England’ Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society  7 (2),  p. 307-325

Official reports:

  • Higher Education and Regions: Globally Competitive, Locally Engaged, OECD, Paris, 2007
  • Connecting Universities to Regional Growth, European Commission, Brussels, 2011
  • Guide to Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3), European Commission, Brussels, 2012

Book chapters:

  • Goddard, J. and Vallance, P. (2011) ‘Universities and Regional Development’, in Pike, A., Rodríguez-Pose, A. and Tomaney, J. (eds.) Handbook of Local and Regional Development. (Routledge, London).
  • Goddard, J., Kempton, L. and Vallance, P. (2013) ‘The Civic University: Connecting the Global and the Local’, in Olechnicka, A., Capello, R. and Gorzelak, G. (eds.) Universities, Cities and Regions. (Routledge, London).
  • Goddard, J., Kempton,L. and Marlow, D. (2014) ‘LEPs, universities and Europe’ in Hardy, S. and Ward,M,.(eds.) Where next for local economic partnerships? Smith Institute, London

 Research Reports:

  • Goddard, J. Re-inventing the Civic University  NESTA, London
  • Goddard, J., Howlett., Vallance, P. and Kennie, T. ( 2010) Researching and Scoping a Higher Education and Civic Leadership Development Programme.  Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, London
  • Goddard, J., Burquel, N. and Kelly,U. (2012) Universities and Regional Innovation: a toolkit to assist with building collaborative partnerships. Final Report of the EU-Drivers for a Regional Innovation Platform, European Centre for the Strategic Management of Universities (ESMU), Brussels
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Ideas for an Incoming Government

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Newcastle University is known around the world for its vision “to be a world-class civic university”. Our guiding principle – excellence with a purpose – helps us to focus on not just what we are good at, but what we are good for. Much of the research we do has relevance for policy and practice, and so the Institute for Social Renewal tries to help bring colleagues’ findings to the attention of policy makers and the general public. For example, in 2014 we organised an event in Westminster to showcase our Queens Anniversary Award winning work on rural economies and societies.

“Meeting colleagues from across the University and hearing about their research, I’m struck by how much of what we discover has relevance for policy, and could help inform better decisions by government,” says Professor Mark Shucksmith OBE, Director of the Institute. “We are working to find new ways in which to bring these findings into discussions about future policies, underpinning their evidence base.”

With the general election approaching, there is a heightened opportunity to contribute to public debates, campaigns and policy formulation, and to engage with voters and parliamentary candidates. With this in mind, Newcastle University academics are now taking part in a series of blogs during February and March to inform election debates and the political parties’ thinking.

Examples of work that has already made a difference can be found on the Highlighted Projects section of the NISR website.

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