Time for a new approach to planning for rural economic development?

摘要

There is a considerable body of recent government-supported research into rural and farm diversification and the planning system, and last year the Countryside Agency asked Land Use Consultants to draw on this work to produce a position statement on planning for sustainable rural economic development to inform future national and local planning policy. Rather than develop a set of model policies, the resulting position statement, Planning for Sustainable Rural Economic Development, instead lays out a clear approach for the development of local policies which reflects the need to understand the differences between different rural areas and tailor policies to meet their particular needs. 'One size fits all' policy for rural diversification is not appropriate for the contemporary countryside, and for significant areas of England the notion of rural diversification itself may be an unhelpful and misleading policy objective.