Work in the Country

One of the abiding myths about the English countryside is that no one needs any money. It is quite possible to imagine that the people of the countryside needn’t even go to shops – that we simply pluck berries from trees and kill the sheep in our back field when we’re a bit peckish. Yet the recession in the countryside is having an alarming effect on market town economies. Recent figures show a massive increase in unemployment within rural areas – and the outlook for rural communities looks bleak.

The Commission for Rural Communities, recently published figures which reveal that the greatest rise in unemployment rates are within rural areas. Restormel in Cornwall, an area of great beauty which includes one of Prince Charles’s homes and the Lost Gardens of Heligan, sees more applicants for a single vacancy than in any urban unemployment blackspot. A quick search of the employment service website yields six jobs in Perranporth – three of which involve cleaning caravans for £6 per hour. Rural Wales is now second only to the North East, as having the highest unemployment rate in the UK, whilst even the affluent Cotswolds have seen unemployment rise by a sharp 22%.


Market towns across England are seeing shops boarded up, lending an air of western movie style dilapidation, as redundant signs flap in spring winds. With only a handful of shops in the first place, the effect on once thriving towns is equal to a large factory closing in an industrial city. My own tiny market town of Ludlow in Shropshire has seen six shops, including Woolworths close for good. There is an attempt to fight back by creating local currencies and showcasing art in empty shop windows, but the debilitating effects on the local economy are profound. For every shop that disappears, so do several jobs. When we talk of unemployment, it is normally illustrated by sad looking souls shuffling around inner city job centres. Yet the rural poor are too far away for the government and media to get excited about. Behind the cottage doors of Rural England is a quiet desperation and silent shame; the fear and humiliation associated with unemployment and poverty. Yet it is difficult to quantify. In a small town, no one wants to admit they’re struggling to pay the rent. Just as competing with the Jones’s is essential to city life, in the countryside it is more so. Who wants to be talked about in the village post office as the man who is now claiming benefits? Yet these families suffer just as much as the urban poor, competing for a handful of ill-paid jobs, and spending twice as much on petrol than any city dweller. And as the recession continues its grip, the market town is dying before our very eyes.


In previous years, the demise of the countryside has centered around the loss of farming. Farmers are still struggling, many have given up, but the centuries old market town remained the beating heart of the countryside. Now however, even they are at risk. Visit London, and it’s easy to understand what has happened. The loss of cappuccino bars and the closure of Bond street tailors and Rolex dealers speak for themselves. In the countryside however, it is hard to equate the mysteries of the world of finance with what is happening to the community. Canary Wharf seems as distant as a far away star. The lambs still gamble and the fields are lush with new grass. But walk down the main street of a country town, and the empty shops tell their own sorry tale. Somehow, the money has gone away and the people of the countryside are left to survive on agriculture and tea rooms alone. The second homers who have been so vilified in the past, are not arriving with their city wage bonuses. When the Rolex dealers do eventually re-open, it will take far longer for the rural economy to gain momentum. The real countryside has nothing to support it, and like a field of blighted potatoes, is left to rot.