RE-CONNECTING YOUNG PEOPLE AFTER THE ENGLISH RIOTS

A very good analysis of the impact of structural unemployment and changes in the labour market arising from urban and regional de-industrialisation on young people growing up in poor areas is to found  in a book entitled Disconnected Youth?

Strategies for re-connecting young people with what ”Big Society” might deem to be desirable are also identified by authors Robert Macdonald and Jane Marsh, as well as obstacles to this.

Although researched and written during the Blair premiership, this book seems particularly relevant to current discussions arising from the recent English riots, including the latest offerings from our former and present prime ministers.

Whilst organisations like the Prince’s Trust are playing a valuable  role in helping young people into employment through setting up their own businesses, a more broadly based national initiative is now required.

This may involve a component of “National Service”, of the kind proposed by Boris Johnson, with a civil as well as military option, but the need for mass job creation targeted at recruiting British youth remains the key challenge.

ENGLISH RIOTS CALL FOR A NEW GEOGRAPHY OF RE-INDUSTRIALISATION

One of the best critiques of the economic restructuring which occurred during the 1970s and early 1980s, although considerably earlier in some places, was published in 1987 as “The Geography of De-industrialisation”" by Cambridge University Press. This excellent collection of academic essays followed the decline of manufacturing and associated sectors in many of Britain’s major cities and the re-location of industrial enterprises beyond centres of organised labour, a process much assisted by the planning system, new infrastructure programmes and other government incentives, including grant funding. The role of the City of London and the UK financial sector is also explored, including the contribution of these to the so-called North-South Divide and the capital’s own East-West economic divergence.

The fate of urban and industrial Britain during the 1970s and 80s was very different from that of many other Northern European cities, notably in Germany, who managed to retain their major employment base. Here New Towns policy and wider support for greenfield development outside large conurbations actively contributed to the economic decline of the latter and, as a  consequence, to high levels of social deprivation in many inner, and sometimes outer, city areas. For the great sad irony of this geography of de-industrialisation was its co-location with the enormous social housing construction schemes of the post-war period which had been planned to accommodate the mass workforce requirements of urban manufacturing and related activities.

In the generation since “The Geography of De-industrialisation” was published, much has changed and much, as the old saying goes, has remained the same. Underemployment, worklessmess and social deprivation have continued to be  persistent features of many former industrial areas, notwithstanding the valuable, and occasionally outstanding, contributions of regeneration and other interventionist programmes. However, many of the basic problems remain and the only real prospect of change for the better resides in  the re-industrialisation of Britain’s major urban areas. Beyond moralising on their causes, the English Riots this month should provide the Coalition Government with a moral imperative to secure the future sustainable development of our cities.

RETURN JOURNEY TO LEAMINGTON SPA RAILWAY STATION

Whilst in no way intending to revoke my previous post on the lack of integrated sustainable planning in much of Britain, I acknowledge that there are examples of good practice at the local level.

For instance, I recently travelled from Worcester to Leamington Spa on the train with my bicycle, interchanging at Birmingham New Street Station on the way there, and Moor Street on the return.

Arriving at Leamington’s well maintained railway station, I took the excellent Tatchbrook Road cycle route immediately opposite as far as the village of Bishops Tatchbrook, by now in the Warwickshire countryside.

My destination was a few miles further on and so impressed was I by the ease (and pleasure!) of the journey, that I decided to take some photographs on the way back.

Incidentally, I’m not a leisure cyclist, and my bicycle is an essential mode of travel to semi-rural areas with infrequent or non-existent bus services.

SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT: THE PROBLEM OF YEAR ZERO PLANNING

I’m beginning to fear that the decade which began in 2010 with the election of a Coalition Government may have the same year zero approach to transport planning in Britain as the one preceding it.

Whatever happened to Transport 2010?

This was then Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott’s vision for integrated transport in the early years of the previous administration, spearheaded by one Professor David Begg, the chairman of a commission set up for the purpose of moving transport sustainably into the twenty first century.

Transport 2010 has now pretty much disappeared without trace, as has the Commission for Integrated Transport, but Professor Begg is heading up the “Yes Campaign” for HS2, the proposed new high speed rail line between London, the Midlands and North of England.

HS2? Just give us a decent train service

This was the title of a recent article by Andrew Gilligan in the Telegraph newspaper, coinciding with the end of a public consultation on HS2, which I’m sure expresses the feelings of most people who use Britain’s rail services. However, a decent train service is precisely the thing which consecutive British governments have found most difficult to deliver.

Groundhog Day School of Transport Planning

Instead we have what can only be described as “The Groundhog Day School of Transport Planning” in the UK, with suits like Professor Begg who have patently failed to deliver sustained movement in policy, let alone implementation, endlessly recycled by fellow professionals and politicians  who seem to have a vested interest in diversions and delays, which they then seek to blame on so-called Nimbys and others with legitimate environmental concerns.

On a local level, another “fine” example of this approach is the case a proposed parkway outside Worcester which has been pointlessly promoted at considerable expense by the County and District Councils for about forty years, whilst the city’s two well located existing railway stations have been starved of investment, although a former toilet at Foregate Street station has been converted into an art gallery called “Movement.

ENCOUNTER WITH EMPEROR DRAGONFLY IN CROOME COUNTRY

Cycling through South Worcestershire’s “Croome Country”* at the weekend, I was briefly accompanied by a magnificent Emperor Dragonfly. What a privilege to encounter something so beautiful on the road!  This largest of  dragonflies is apparently moving northwards, which also happened to be my direction of travel.

*A pleasantly rolling landscape named after the Croome Hunt, with Cotswolds outlier Bredon Hill in the distance.

ENGLISH PART-BRED OR WARM-BLOOD MARES

As a particular fan of the English part-bred horse, often in fact an Irish Draught mare crossed with a thoroughbred stallion, I’m always delighted to meet these friendly equines whilst out walking.

The part-bred makes a splendid all-round riding horse, usually having a good temperament, and are particularly favoured as hunters.

However, pressure to produce so-called “Sports Horses” in recent years has, in my view, taken some of the robustness from this breed type in an attempt to create greater athleticism.

Let’s hope that the contemporary attraction of the European warm-blood, suited to dressage, does not lead to a decline in the hunter-type horse (also a warm blood) in England.

IMPERFECT STORMS: ATTEMPTING TO FORECAST THE FUTURE

In the past few years, there has been widespread reference to the coming of “A Perfect Storm” around 2040 involving the apocalyptic convergence of events associated with the world’s rising population, food and water shortages, an ever-growing demand for energy and climate change.

Writing in the latest edition of “Oxford Today” (The University Magazine), the business man and philanthropist behind the James Martin 21st Century School at the University of Oxford holds forth on these and other issues.

However, whilst there is much to agree with in his article, James Martin’s reference to “elite dinner parties” – conjuring up images of the Camerons dining with the Brooks (the News International Brooks, and not the other Oxford University) in West Oxfordshire and similar soirees – naturally sets my egalitarian alarm bells ringing.

For one of the greatest problems facing humanity is the increasing disparity of wealth and power between elites and wider societies. This may well have political ramifications beyond the technocratic foresights of the scientific community whose expertise Mr Martin wishes us all to embrace.

In conclusion, the Oxford Martin School may want to look at the relevance of historical Marxism to the likely problems of the future. For although Martin’s article expresses the view that “Russia may muddle through with a massive consumption of vodka”,  it may be to the Soviet Revolution that we should look for evidence of “A Perfect Storm”.

THE VALE OF THE RED HORSE

Last week I purchased two rather interesting pamphlets from the Worcester Library and History Centre. Entitled “The Red Horse of Tysoe” and “The Search for Britain’s Lost Unique Hill Figure”, these publications investigate the historical existence of horse figures in the landscape of South Warwickshire and North Oxfordshire, an area sometimes known as “The Vale of the Red Horse”.

For more information, please consult the following link -

www.hows.org.uk/personal/hillfigs/lost/tysoe/tysoe.htm

BRITISH MOUNTAIN AND MOORLAND PONIES

Kemsey Common Worcestershire May 2011

FINANCIALIZATION UNDERMINES REAL ECONOMY

The term “financialization” has been coined to describe how banks and financial services exert increasing control over international and national economies as well as the economic life of local communities and individuals. Speeches by the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer and the President of France last week illustrate this situation very well.

In his City of London Mansion House speech, George Osborne drew attention to the disproportionate size of the UK financial sector, focussed on the capital, relative to the rest of the British economy. However, the sector is currently under-performing  relative to the economy as a whole, thereby undermining its competitiveness. The Chancellor and his colleagues in the Coalition Government have called for a “re-balancing of the economy” to tackle this problem, thereby advocating a strategy formerly the purview of left-wing commentators. In contrast, Labour politicians have tended to act as advocates for the City, which swelled to its current state of obesity during their watch.

French President Sarkozy chose to highlight the same problem of financialization later in the week with reference to the current speculation in commodity markets. Such speculation has contributed to a sharp rise in the cost of food and other resources, thereby threatening up to a billion people with shortages and starvation. Mr Sarkozy has called for improved regulation of commodity markets, again focussed on London. Although his calls have been interpreted by some as an attempt to deflect attention away from the shortcomings of European Union policies.

The French government is hosting the first ever meeting of G20 agricultural ministers today and tomorrow: evidence that the importance of the land-based economy - the foundation stone of the real economy – is once again starting to receive the proper attention of international politics. Management of  the financialization issue will form a key part of the discussions.