As I reflect on the demise of legal fox hunting in the UK, it’s hard to say anything that hasn’t been said repeatedly for months. But in the context of other rural issues there are things which should still be said.
In recent years, those of us who try to earn a living outside the UK’s towns and cities have been challenged by a whole series of hurdles, trip wires, man traps and propaganda - usually dreamt up by people who have little if anything to do with rural economics.
Ironically, it is these people who wish to live in, or retire to, the countryside which has been made green and pleasant by the those of us who they irritate.
Certainly fox hunting has nothing to do with urban dwellers and its banning has everything to do with a perverse attitude of the do-gooders who have watched too many Bambi movies and/or resent the sort of people they think go hunting.
Clearly the Act will prove unworkable and unenforcable - if it hasn’t already - and we will be left to reflect on the cost of its promulgation and the time the police will have to waste pratting about the countryside after a bunch of dozy anoraks with video cameras.
But the annoyance does not stop there. Two other mindless wastes of energy need to be addressed. The first relates to, again, the nouveau riche rural dwellers who on the one hand espouse their enthusiasm for organic, home-grown fresh produce, packed in environmentally friendly bio-degradable packaging and delivered with minimum food miles, while on the other hand seem to go out of their way to make it virtually impossible for the producer to provide it.
Strawberries prove a great example. Of late there has been a major hue and cry about the use of poly structures to protect strawberry plants and enable the UK season to be extended - and in so doing, meet the pressure from “customer-driven” supermarkets for such product. But “oh no” is the cry from the rural NIMBYs. “They are such an eyesore - they must come down”.
Unfortunately for many, the councils have obliged in many instances and, in so doing, jeopardised the economic viability of the very people who have, and do, make the countryside what it is today. Madness, absolute madness.
Then we have the rural commuter, his car and the commercial vehicles used by fresh produce suppliers to serve their customers.
Accepted, we all dislike large trucks and articulated lorries but in today’s age it really is impossible to operate without them. We don’t like them on the motorways, we don’t like following them and we don’t like passing them on country lanes.
Country lanes are tricky because the likelihood is that you will disappear up into the hedge or back down into a drainage grip.
So the argument goes that artics, especially, should be banned from these roads. Commuters argue that farm vehicles are different and that they have a right to be there because the farms have been there since Harold had his eye shot out. Of course there is an element of truth in that, but times change. It’s a long time since the Fergy T20 plied the country lanes with a two furrow ploy on the hydraulic lift, the little Ford van brought gossip and veg to rural communities and low tonnage trucks came to take away corn, spuds and fat lambs.
Today the Fast Track, combine harvester, sugar beet lifter and 20 tonne bulk trailers fill the roads - made ever more busy with two-car family units which have gobbled up all the cheap rural and village properties.
But farmers have to get their produce to market efficiently and safely. Generally speaking that can only be done by using articulated lorries - or 18 tonners at least.
But this is where the problem emerges - the battle between the commuter and the rural businessman and farmer.
For there to be a vibrant rural economy, the businessmen’s and farmers’ interests must prevail. There is no case to be apologetic. Don’t go there. If people wish to live in the rural area then they must recognise the rights of those that keep it in good heart and provide the nation with its ridiculously cheap food, i.e before retail margins are applied - oh and over-riders deducted!
Exercise your rights of access, use the roads - you pay enough road tax on an artic. Don’t be too concerned about the hours you use the roads in either: to make a living farmers and horticulturalists don’t exactly enjoy putting in the awesome hours they do, but have to do so to survive.
Having said that, it is equally important to ensure that your vehicles are driven with extra courtesy and care, stopping and pulling over when necessary. And always try to use the least busy roads.
Just do it. If the commuters don’t like it they may leave and free up cheaper accommodation - probably for your workers. It may prompt the commuter to lobby the relevant council to improve the rural road networks that often lay untended for decades. Either way you have some chance of benefiting. It is time to stop being overly apologetic and appeasing. The various interpretations of rural retreat has to stop.
• Many thanks for the level of positive response received following the article on over-riders. It’s even better to hear that a number of suppliers are now refusing to talk over-riders without volume being on the agenda. And better than that, the OFT has been formally asked to audit the entire supply base of one leading supermarket to establish just how the over-rider is seen in practice.
Now is the chance to say, in confidence, what the reality is. Some may see this as an opportunity to curry favour but since the audit will be confidential, why bother. I would prepare two responses, one you send to your buyer as a copy, the other you would send to the OFT as the truth. Who knows, the OFT may demand that some or all of the over-riders charged last year should be repaid. It may not be much to some, but as the saying goes, every little helps.
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