Campaign to Protect Rural England

CPRE, the countryside charity [2], formerly known as the Campaign to Protect Rural England, is a charity [3] in England with over 40,000 members and supporters. Formed in 1926 by Sir Patrick Abercrombie to limit urban sprawl and ribbon development, the CPRE (until the 1960s the Council for the Preservation of Rural England and from then until 2003 the Council for the Protection of Rural England) claims to be one of the longest running environmental groups. CPRE campaigns for a "sustainable future" for the English countryside. They state it is "a vital but undervalued environmental, economic and social asset to the nation." They aim to "highlight threats and promote positive solutions." They campaign using their own research to lobby the public and all levels of government.

CPRE, the countryside charity
AbbreviationCPRE
MottoStanding up for your countryside
PredecessorCouncil for the Preservation of Rural England
Formation1926
FounderSir Patrick Abercrombie
TypeCharitable organisation
Registration no.Registered charity number: 1089685
Headquarters5-11 Lavington Street, London, SE1 0NZ
Region
England
Membership
40,000
Patron
Elizabeth II
President
Emma Bridgewater CBE
Chair
Simon Murray [1]
Chief Executive
Crispin Truman
Staff
40
Volunteers
1,200
WebsiteOfficial website

Achievements

CPRE has influenced public policy relating to town and country planning in England, most notably in the formation of the National Parks and AONBs in 1949, and of green belts in 1955.[4]

It claims some credit for the slow shift of agricultural policies across Europe away from a price-support philosophy to one of environmental stewardship, a policy shift begun in England.[5][6] Campaigns against noise and light pollution have been pursued over recent years, and CPRE is now focusing on "tranquillity" as a key aspect of the countryside which CPRE wants to see protected in England's planning policies.

CPRE joined the 10:10 project in 2010 in a bid to reduce their carbon footprint. One year later they announced that they had reduced their carbon emissions (according to 10:10's criteria) by 12%.[7]

Criticism

Critics characterise CPRE as

  • Proponents of a drawbridge mentality (i.e. "I've moved to the countryside but I don't want others to do likewise")[8]
  • Motivated by luddite nostalgia,[9] or
  • Motivated by an egotist NIMBY stance[10]
  • Supporters of exclusionary planning practises to keep low-income residents out of rural areas.[11]

In December 2008 George Monbiot of The Guardian interviewed the then CPRE head, Shaun Spiers, about the organisation's opposition to wind farms but not opencast coal mines. George Monbiot asked why he couldn't find any opposition of the CPRE to surface coal mining over the past five years, and pointed out that the negative effects that coal mines cause by removing the soil from large areas are much greater than the negative effects wind energy might have on the countryside.[12] As a result of this, in 2010 campaigning against inappropriate mineral extraction by opencast mining started to be featured under the 'Climate change and natural resources' section of CPRE's website.[13]

In 2011, the CPRE entered the debate on High Speed Rail in England and complained there was not enough public consultation [14] despite over 200 million GBP having been already spent on consultancy work.

The CPRE has been criticised for exaggerating the threat to rural England and has warned that the countryside was in danger of being 'concreted over'.[15] According to IEA statistics, only about one-tenth of the English surface area is 'developed' in the broadest sense. About half of that area consists of domestic gardens, leaving only one-twentieth which is really 'under concrete' (including roads, railways, car parks etc.).[16]

Figures from the British YIMBY movement have criticised the CPRE, accusing it of denying the British housing crisis and significantly underestimating housing need in high-cost areas to justify the inviolability of the Greenbelt.[17] YIMBY’s have stated that this policy denies both rural and urban communities of housing that, if planned correctly, they would want to build. The alleged success of their campaign to restrict housing on the rural-urban fringe has led John Myers of London YIMBY to describe them as ‘the NRA of the UK’.[18] Their criticism has also been targeted at the CPRE’s emphasis on the use of brownfield sites, overstating their ability to meet Britain’s housing need. According to the YIMBY movement, this is a distraction from the necessary infill development in and around major urban centres, which offer significantly more potential to meet housing need inside urban areas.[19]

Structure

CPRE's national office is at 5–11, Lavington Street, Southwark, London. It also has offices in the eight other regions of England.

In addition there are CPRE branches in each of England's counties and groups in over 200 districts. All but two of the 43 CPRE branches are independent charities of their own. CPRE Durham and CPRE Northumberland are subsidiaries of national CPRE.

Campaigns

CPRE's current campaigns include:

  • Influencing development plans at local, regional and national level.
  • Reducing “clutter” in the form of unnecessary road signs and advertising billboards in the countryside and seeking ways to protect quiet rural roads
  • Creating a tool to map tranquillity in the countryside and finding ways for this to be used by local and regional planners
  • Protecting hedgerows
  • Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and fighting for farmers to be recognised for the work they do in protecting the character of the countryside
  • Lobbying for more affordable housing to be built in rural areas
  • Lobbying planners to ensure that as many new developments as possible are built on Brownfield (rather than Greenfield) land. In particular it is fighting for the protection of green belts.
  • Reducing litter in rural areas across England via local action and events and lobbying government
  • Supporting campaigns against 'surface' or opencast mining.[20]
  • Modifying HS2 rail plans to remove all planned out-of-town interchange ("parkway") stations [21]
  • Challenging the potential Oxford to Cambridge Expressway [22]
  • Suggesting a range of practical measures to be adopted by central and local government in order to support local food businesses so that they can provide fair and affordable prices. Preliminary work consisted of a five-year research – 'Mapping Local Food Webs' (2007–2012).[23]
  • Launching Star Count 2013 – a campaign to stop light pollution by involving the public in star-counting in order to map light pollution across the UK and raise awareness.[24]
  • Reducing the impact of light pollution to reduce carbon budgets and save money (2014).[25]
  • Launching a photography competition celebrating the beauty of Dorset's countryside (2016).[26]
  • Supporting campaigns for farming funding that will stem loss of smaller farms and the diversity they provide (2017).[27]
  • Campaigning against large-scale fracking operation in the UK, that will destroy large areas of the countryside and exacerbate the global plastic binge (2018).[28]

History

CPRE was formed following the publication of “The Preservation of Rural England” by Sir Patrick Abercrombie in 1926. Sir Patrick became its Honorary Secretary. The inaugural meeting was held in December 1926 at the London offices of the Royal Institute of British Architects and was addressed by Neville Chamberlain, a future prime minister.[29]

Its first campaign was against the spread of ribbon developments which it saw as carving up the countryside. It also began arguing the case for protecting areas of England's most beautiful countryside, and for setting up green belts to preserve the character of towns and give town dwellers easy access to the countryside.

Its campaigning helped lead to the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949.

When England's first motorway the M1 was proposed in 1957 CPRE successfully campaigned for it to avoid the heart of Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire (the road was put into a cutting). Similarly when the M4 was built in 1963 CPRE successfully fought to protect the Berkshire Downs. It also began at this time to seek for tighter control on advertising hoardings along roadsides.

In 1985 in a campaign to reform the EC's Agricultural Structures Directive, CPRE stopped funding for many damaging agricultural activities and secured the first “green” farm payments. In 1988 it helped persuade the Chancellor of the Exchequer to scrap tax incentives favouring blanket conifer plantations in scenic areas.

In 1990 the Government's first ever Environment White Paper accepted the case for hedgerow protection, 20 years after CPRE's campaign was first launched, and in 1997 laws to protect hedgerows finally came into force.

In 1995 CPRE published “tranquillity” maps which show the diminishing areas of the countryside not disturbed by man-made noise, visual intrusion or light pollution. These were updated using a pioneering new methodology in 2006. CPRE also published similar maps focusing solely on light pollution in 2003.

In 1996, English composer John Rutter wrote the words and music for an anthem entitled "Look at the World" in celebration of the 70th anniversary of the CPRE.

In April 2006 CPRE Peak District & South Yorkshire sought to clarify its identity across its vast territory by operating under two distinct identities. Due to its long association with Peak District National Park, the organisation operates as the Friends of the Peak District in the Peak District National Park, High Peak Borough and six parishes of North East Derbyshire (Eckington, Unstone, Holmesfield, Killamarsh, Dronfield, Barlow).

In 2007 CPRE published a series of intrusion maps which highlighted areas disturbed by the presence of noise and visual intrusion from major infrastructure such as motorways and A roads, urban areas and airports. The resulting maps show the extent of intrusion in the early 1960s, early 1990s and 2007.

The CPRE promotes a large number of rural properties, by means of its annual Members' Guide.[30] The 2012 Members Guide was supported by the National Farmers Union.[31]

In 2015, CPRE published the 'Warm and Green' report, which sheds new light on the scale of the energy problems and the solutions needed to tackle them.[32] During the same year CPRE earned the Bankside Star by contributing significantly to the Together at Christmas gift collection campaign for the homeless, vulnerably housed and elderly people.[33]

In 2018 after CPRE's successful 10-year campaign against drink-container litter, the Government announced the introduction of a deposit return scheme to increase recycling rates. As CPRE had demanded, the scheme is set to include all single use drink-containers, whether plastic, glass or metal.[34]

CPRE people
  • Patron: Queen Elizabeth II
  • President: Emma Bridgewater CBE since 2016
  • Chair: Simon Murray[35]
  • Chief Executive: Crispin Truman

Other CPRE people

Regional and Local Groups

East of England

Local Branches within this Region: Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk & Suffolk

North East

Local Branches within this Region: Durham & Northumberland

North West

Local Branches within this Region: Cheshire, Cumbria & Lancashire

South East

Local Branches within this Region: Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, London, Oxfordshire, Surrey & Sussex

South West

Local Branches within this Region: Avonside, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Somerset & Wiltshire

West Midlands

Local Branches within this Region: Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire & Worcestershire

East Midlands

Local Branches within this Region: Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Peak District & Rutland

Yorkshire and the Humber

Local Branches within this Region: East Riding, North Yorkshire, Northern Lincolnshire, Peak District, South Yorkshire & West Yorkshire

See also

References
  1. https://www.cpre.org.uk/about-us/cpre-media/cpre-welcomes-new-chair/#:~:text=Simon%20Murray%20elected%20as%20new%20Chair%20of%20CPRE,Chair%20of%20CPRE%20in%20the%20Forest%20of%20Dean.
  2. https://www.civilsociety.co.uk/news/campaign-to-protect-rural-england-announces-new-name-and-strategy.html
  3. https://www.cpre.org.uk/about-us/who-we-are/our-vision/
  4. Making our mark - 80 years of campaigning for the countryside by Tristram Hunt
  5. Living Landscapes: Hidden Costs of Managing the Countryside, available from the CPRE website Archived 28 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  6. "House of Commons - Environment, Food and Rural Affairs - Minutes of Evidence". Retrieved 17 January 2015.
  7. ref
  8. CPRE? “Ok, but don’t turn Cornwall into replica of England”, Andrew George MP, 16 December 2013
  9. Andrew Motion: 'Once you develop land, it is gone forever as countryside', Tim Adams, The Observer, 1 December 2012
  10. Abolish all green belts and ignore the nimbys, Kristian Niemietz, Institute of Economic Affairs, 27 November 2013
  11. https://www.citymetric.com/fabric/cpre-keeps-lying-about-its-support-affordable-housing-4761
  12. "George Monbiot meets ... Shaun Spiers". The Guardian. London. 18 December 2008. Retrieved 28 April 2010.
  13. "Take Action". cpre.org.uk. Retrieved 17 January 2015.
  14. "HS2: Charities urge high-speed rail rethink". BBC News. 7 April 2011.
  15. James Kirkup, Political Correspondent (7 May 2008). "City-sized swathe of green belt 'concreted over'". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 17 January 2015.
  16. "Abundance of land, shortage of housing". iea.org.uk. Retrieved 17 January 2015.
  17. https://capx.co/cpre-cannot-go-on-denying-the-scale-of-the-housing-crisis/
  18. https://www.citymetric.com/skylines/podcast-power-yes-4796
  19. https://www.citymetric.com/fabric/why-did-we-stop-building-density-planning-and-why-cpre-still-wrong-about-brownfield-4534
  20. Climate change and natural resources: Minerals
  21. In depth: High Speed 2, CPRE
  22. http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/15101701.New___3_5bn_Oxford_Cambridge_Expressway_route_could_pass_through_protected_Green_Belt/
  23. PoliticsHome.com (11 June 2012). "CPRE: Focus should be on local food". PoliticsHome.com. Retrieved 8 January 2019.
  24. "Star Count 2013: preserving the UK's dark skies | BBC Sky at Night Magazine". www.skyatnightmagazine.com. Archived from the original on 9 January 2019. Retrieved 9 January 2019.
  25. "Reduce light pollution, campaign argues | The Planner". www.theplanner.co.uk. Retrieved 9 January 2019.
  26. "Calling all photographers! New competition celebrating best of Dorset is launched". Bournemouth Echo. Retrieved 17 January 2019.
  27. PoliticsHome.com (9 August 2017). "Smaller farms heading towards a cliff edge, warns CPRE". PoliticsHome.com. Retrieved 17 January 2019.
  28. Taylor, Matthew (22 August 2018). "UK fracking push could fuel global plastics crisis, say campaigners". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 17 January 2019.
  29. "Rural England". The Times Digital Archive. 8 December 1926. p. 13. Retrieved 28 August 2014.
  30. "Members Guide 2011 - Featured Properties" at cpre.org.uk
  31. Members Guide 2012, published by CPRE, 2012
  32. Manager, Digital Communications. "Warm and Green - Campaign to Protect Rural England". www.cpre.org.uk. Retrieved 15 January 2019.
  33. "Campaign to Protect Rural England | Better Bankside". www.betterbankside.co.uk. Retrieved 15 January 2019.
  34. "Deposit return scheme in fight against plastic". GOV.UK. Retrieved 15 January 2019.
  35. https://www.cpre.org.uk/about-us/cpre-media/cpre-welcomes-new-chair
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