YOUNG BEING PRICED OUT OF MARKET

Brigg was represented at the annual meeting of the Humber and Wold Regional Community Council by Deputy Town Mayor Coun James Truepenny(pictured), who found plenty to interest him, as detailed in his report below, issued to fellow councillors. Also at the event was Scunthorpe's Labour MP, Elliot Morley.

The AGM opened with the special guest speakers. Firstly, Chris Elton, of Sheffield Hallam University, who explained his doctoral work in the areas of policy and community relations with national government. His work outlined the three periods of development in rural policy, the post-war years where government used its rural agenda to secure food production up until around 1988; the second period of 1988 to 2001, which he called a decade of debate; and, finally, 2001 to today where he feels the government is experimenting in integrating rural policy.
One of the projects discussed at great length was Yorkshire Forward's remit of "Discovery not direction", where Yorkshire Forward attempted to help people realise what services they already had to ensure no duplication would occur, while still funding new projects.
He also talked of the "mainstreaming" of the rural agenda, bringing the idea of regionalism into all policy rather than dedicating to policy. Further comment was made of DEFRA and its non-holistic approach to rural policy, which he believed to be a return to efficiency over development.
As a follow up, the keynote speaker, Elliot Morley MP (Scunthorpe), offered some answers to Chris Elton's criticisms. As the former DEFRA Minister he was well-placed to do so, believing DEFRA showed verisimilitude in its approach and successfully went about creating stronger community ties, using the voluntary sector to develop strong community ties, supporting innovation and social cohesion to build support for a new rural society.
Moving onto different matters, Jo Louis talked about providing affordable housing
in a rural environment. The importance of social inclusion in housing planning has always been something I considered more an urban issue; however, with more money coming into rural areas, the planning-led approach should stop, or ease, a mass exodus of the rural population - the overriding problem being younger house-buyers are getting priced out of the market, which has knock-on effects for rural areas as family cohesion, and the simple willingness to live where your roots are, is being clearly affected.