Professor Mark Shucksmith OBE, Newcastle University
Time for a coherent Rural Strategy?
Rural areas across Britain are highly diverse, each with their own history, challenges and opportunities. Each can contribute to national objectives of inclusive growth, a green transition and improved wellbeing for all. But unlocking this potential and addressing pressing challenges such as the higher cost of living and access to services requires a more coherent and informed response from government.
In short, it’s time for a coherent rural strategy.
A long time coming
Way back in 1998, a new Environment Minister, Michael Meacher, announced that the government planned a new Rural White Paper based on an overarching new vision.
“We have to show that we do have a vision of not only how we can preserve the beauty and tranquillity of the countryside, but that we have a practical and radical vision of how we can make it prosper.”
The resulting Rural White Paper was forgotten as the Foot and Mouth crisis dominated thinking. In 2019 a cross-party House of Lords Select Committee on rural economy called again for a coherent rural strategy, supported by rural-proofing and a place-based approach, but this was rejected by the government.
The new government elected in 2024 with a mission-led approach, intended to cut across departmental silos, encouragingly set up a Rural Taskforce on Government Mission Delivery. NICRE gave evidence to the Taskforce. A DEFRA Minister in 2025 looked forward to development of a coherent strategy for rural Britain.
But now missions are rarely mentioned and it is unclear what impact the Group’s work will have.
The need for a coherent rural policy
Rural policy has to address a very wide range issues including food and farming, housing, transport, post offices, village halls, healthcare, crime, training, business and innovation, conservation, environment and renewable energy. This necessarily requires the involvement of many government departments, creating challenges of co-ordination, responsibility and accountability.
To illustrate this, it is notable that none of the ten actions in the Treasury’s Rural Productivity Plan (2015) were DEFRA responsibilities, although DEFRA is responsible for rural policy and this is scrutinised by the EFRA Select Committee which expressed its misgivings about the lack of co-ordination of rural policy in its report Rural Communities (2013).
A coherent policy needs to look beyond agriculture for the future of England’s rural economies, important though food and farming are, and pursue a place-based approach incorporating local knowledge, so recognising the diversity of rural places.
It must also challenge the emphasis on urban areas and city regions as sources of growth and innovation, and the focus on large firms to the neglect of microbusinesses and home working.
It will also necessitate rural proofing of local growth plans, fair funding of local council services and support for community organisations. The inclusion of a rural competence for strategic authorities in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 is an important step in this direction.
A broad vision for progress shared by rural citizens
Drawing on evidence of successful approaches elsewhere, Glass and Shucksmith (2025a, 2025b) suggest an approach which combines an emphasis on multi-level, cross-departmental collaboration with place-sensitive actions and flexibility. An effective rural strategy would have to be more than merely a technical performance framework, but rather a broad vision for progress shared by rural citizens and organisations, under the scrutiny of a multi-stakeholder Board. Incentive structures and budgets would have to be aligned with the proposed outcomes, with local flexibility and agency, reflecting both national objectives and place diversity.
Such an approach holds genuine potential to revitalise rural policy, but only if reconfigured as a collaborative, multi-level endeavour. By combining the strategic clarity of missions with the participatory ethos of wellbeing frameworks, policymakers might finally bridge the gap between national ambition and local agency. The alternative seems to be a continuation of fragmented, top-down approaches, which will fail rural communities.
The task ahead is not merely technical but profoundly political: to reimagine rural governance as a vehicle for spatial justice rather than an afterthought in urban-centric agendas.
As the international experience of well-being frameworks demonstrates, this requires long-term commitment, adaptive learning, and above all, a willingness to cede power to the communities these policies purport to serve.
Further reading
EFRA Select Committee (2013) Rural Communities. HMSO.
Glass J, Shucksmith M (2025a) Reimagining rural policy through mission-led governance. The Geographical Journal, 191, 4,
Glass J, Shucksmith M (2025b) Reimagining rural policy through mission-led governance, Geography Directions, November 2025.
HM Treasury/ DEFRA (2015) Rural Productivity Plan: Towards a one nation economy: A 10-point plan for boosting rural productivity. HMSO.
House of Lords Select Committee on the Rural Economy (2019) Time for a Strategy for the Rural Economy. HL Paper 330.
Shucksmith M (2018) Rural Policy after Brexit, Contemporary Social Science, 19, 312-326.
