The Coalition Government’s desire for economic “growth” threatens the very fabric of the country and countryside, says Peter Gibbs.
In 1969, The Buildings of England series of books (edited by the great Nikolaus Pevsner) issued a volume entitled West Kent and the Weald. Written by John Newman, a Man of Kent – traditionally the designation for those who live on the land to the west of the Medway – this fascinating edition provided, and still provides, a detailed prospect of the South East. The author begins his story, celebrating the “extraordinary variety” of Kent: “… from the well-clipped suburbia of Beckenham and Chislehurst” to “the blanched and windy chalk uplands” of the North Downs”, and “…the creeks and marshland of the Thames and Medway estuaries.” Romney Marsh is also considered – that land’s end of Southern England – which begins in the gentle, quiet, hilly area near Hamstreet, spreads out before the visitor at Appledore, and stretches on, via New Romney, St. Mary in the Marsh, and Lydd to the shingle tip of Dungeness beach.
As Professor Roger Scruton rightly observed, the countryside is a profoundly human institution: its towns, villages and churches telling the saga of the very settlement of England and of Britain. Yet this intrinsically conservative vision of a country and county of established towns, local architecture, traditions and familiar landscape is under threat, as a direct result of the policies now being pursued by a supposedly Conservative Government. The upper echelon of the present Tory Party consists largely of what might be called “management politicians”. This political species – schooled entirely in the notion of markets, money, the accumulation of wealth, and the undertaking of a policy for material or utilitarian gain or purpose – now presides over the thinking of a generation. To the economists and city-slickers of the Cabinet, ‘growth’ is everything: a constantly restless and changing society of high speeds, thundering lorries, solidly-busy motorways, high-speed rail routes through Chiltern countryside (although not too close to the Prime Minister’s weekend retreat), new towns, new suburbs, and – if we cannot find the labour market in Britain – new people.
Yet this futuristic, dystopian place of shopping centres, mega-stores (with car parks the size of a wheat field) and crammed-together new housing is not just a desire of George Osborne’s economic Tories. The Liberal Democrats, who are often at the forefront of local campaigns to protect the greenbelt and the countryside, are also championing the ooze, the lava-flow of hideous, alien and alienating new building and development. Nick Clegg, for example, believes that the construction of the HS2 route to Birmingham and the North will increase “connectivity” and thus ‘boost’ the economy – yet in the South-East and across the country generally, villages and towns (particularly in economically-depressed East and South-East Kent) would be much better served by an investment in local bus routes and the re-opening of vital branchlines – the very lines scrapped in the early 1960s by Beeching, an earlier harbinger of the money-is-everything mentality.
Today, efforts are made by our political elite, not to increase manufacturing productivity – the true essence of wealth and wealth-creation – but to stimulate the false economy of endless housebuilding; a strange idea for growth, considering the extremely low rate of mortgage approval, the uncertain nature of our employment market, and the next-to-impossible odds for the younger generation to save for and buy their first property. But what must concern us is the impact which the politicians’ mentality is having upon our identity as a country. For by eroding the greenbelt (an institution which was supposed to preserve the boundary between town and country), and by building upon the countryside itself in a rapacious replay of the fill-up-a-field policy of the 1960s, our Government and their tame, obedient planners in ‘local’ authorities risk the ruination of Britain.
Former market towns of the South-East, such as Maidstone (the county town) and Bromley now resemble mini versions of inner-city Birmingham – with hideous high-rises replacing the high-streets. (No doubt in an attempt to “stimulate growth”, the old and well-loved Maidstone museum has – what appears at first glance – a gigantic modernist golden water tank attached to it; a vulgar, out-of-place appendage, which has merely added to the confusion and sterility of the built environment.) And the very sense of towns giving way to countryside, and a town or village then coming into view, has also been blurred by the process of ‘in-filling’: Rochester and Chatham now being redrawn and rebranded as “Medway City”, and even the greenbelt between Maidstone and the Borough of Tonbridge and Malling is likely to be lost under the concrete of new estates and developments.
The marshes and creeks, too, face obliteration, as Boris Johnson seeks to build yet another airport on the ancient Isle of Grain in the Thames Estuary. There are also plans for the massive expansion of Lydd Airport on Romney Marsh (a unique and important landscape, with one of the country’s largest bird sanctuaries) – although the railway line that still exists and runs to the town of Lydd is abandoned. With the possible loss of Romney Marsh and the Isle of Grain, there will be hardly anywhere left within the South-East that can truly be called a wild landscape.
As our major cities become increasingly congested and less cohesive – a result of the large-scale immigration and permanent population settlement ushered in at the end of the 1950s and ‘60s – so the former residents of South-East London and the capital seek escape. They wish to enjoy cleaner air and greener spaces, and to live in a place where there is still such a thing as a parish or village hall; or a local pub, or woodland which they can enjoy during a weekend walk. Yet this unsettling phenomenon of in-migration within Britain, where British citizens are displaced, but room is miraculously available for a possible 29 million people from Bulgaria and Romania, must be resisted, or at best, contained. By failing to do so, the appearance of the county of Kent, and everything we understand by that lyrical word – England – will be changed forever.
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I have heard it said that ‘they’ want to build several new towns in the south east of England. Another Stevenage, Harlow, Milton Keynes, etc. What I would like to know is where are all the thousands of people who will live in these new towns going to work? In London? Where will their children go to school? Will there be the money to build new schools? To train and provide more teachers?
The mind boggles when one thinks of the congestion on the roads, the overcrowding in the schools, the sheer weight of numbers.
No one in government is thinking this through. No doubt they think that by the time the awfulness of it all becomes apparent they will be long gone. Exactly the same attitude as they had with immigration.
As a great man once said, our grandchildren will curse them for having squandered our heritage.
The question Mo doesn’t ask is where all these new people will come from. Understandable because – not like the past – from white flight but from the world and all its petty feuds that’s where from.
As some economic commentators have stated the current alleged economic recovery is simply down to ‘QE’ or Quantitative Easing and is not down to increased exports or the government cutting its budget.
There is also concern about the far too close relationship between the City of London and the Cabinet and the Civil Service.
When Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne leave the government they will undoubtedly be offered well paid unchallenging employment connected to the financial world. Most certainly they will not be looking for jobs in productive industry because any industrial company would know that Messrs Cameron and Osborne are totally unsuited by background and education to a target-oriented managerial position. Imagine Nissan or AEG employing Mr Cameron in a managerial position; the mind boggles.
Nationalists are too sentimental about the historical Oxbridge system, which is part of the loop of corrupt government, which produces the likes of Osborne and Cameron and encourages short-term attitudes and the use of immigration as a panacea rather than a philosophy of constant investment in industry with long-term planned strategy with a highly skilled, motivated and flexible native labour force.
When Britain finally gets a long-awaited and much-needed Nationalist government, I hope that quality countryside, wildlife habitat and fertile agricultural acreage lost to immigration-fuelled overdevelopment is restored to its former unspoilt state.
Greenfield reclamation is a difficult (but not impossible) long-term process. Buildings can be demolished and their foundations removed (and recovered construction materials can be recycled). The topsoil can be reconditioned and aerated so that it once again can support vegetation. Trees can be planted and biodiversity/ecology re-established.
The indigenous British have a psychological and spiritual connection with our dwindling countryside. Our green countryside is part of our heritage; large, grey and ugly concrete conurbations (think of Croydon) are not. Don’t misunderstand me – I don’t expect everyone to live in eco-friendly hemp wigwams or tree houses. The point I am trying to make is that a balance needs to be achieved between urban areas and our natural environment – this endless urban sprawl cannot continue. Furthermore, unchecked economic growth (or growth for growth’s sake) should not be at the expense of our diminishing countryside.
If figures published by independent watchdog Migration Watch UK are to be believed, Britain has long surpassed its environmentally sustainable carrying capacity. If successive Labour and Conservative governments had adopted an environmentally sustainable immigration policy from the outset, all of this harmful extra infrastructure would not be needed.
We must close the door to all further immigration. Of paramount importance, we must leave the EU so that we can actually control our own borders!
As a CPRE supporter, I care very much about our countryside. Its destruction sickens me so much that I often find it difficult to sleep.
This article, titled: “Why an open immigration policy is incompatible with environmental protection” makes for interesting reading:
http://resistancetoantidemocraticleft.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/why-an-open-immigration-policy-is-incompatible-with-environmental-protection/