BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund

Subject: RE: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 07 Jul 10 - 05:57 PM

!If you believe there ever was a civilised innocent with romantic illusions at the core of Diana the martyr, you should look up some of the stories about the unlucky governesses and tutors engaged to school the little bitch.!

Geez...

Er...Diana's brother had bright red hair when he was younger.

Subject: RE: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: Paul Burke
Date: 07 Jul 10 - 05:15 PM

There's a lot of unemployment in the country. They live in houses they can't afford to buy. Unfortunately, they own them, and don't want to sell.

There's a lot of jobs in the M4 corridor, but no houses people can afford at the wages offered.

Here's the plan.

Stop the dole for people in the houses we want, send them to live in tents or 4 to a room in the M4 corridor. Then they won't be unemployed, and we won't have to pay them dole, and we can have the houses they can't afford in the country. Cheap.

Now, how can we swap council estates in Liverpool to our advantage?

Subject: RE: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 07 Jul 10 - 04:29 PM

Funny, my post got eaten.

I think you will find most of the brilliance came from my former partner at Mishcon de Reya, Anthony Julius.

If you believe there ever was a civilised innocent with romantic illusions at the core of Diana the martyr, you should look up some of the stories about the unlucky governesses and tutors engaged to school the little bitch.

The whole thing reinforces my belief in the romanticised stupidity of the "public".

Subject: RE: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 07 Jul 10 - 02:43 PM

I must confess to having something of an admiration for Diana's Machiavellian capacity to successfully manipulate the media and public. I rather enjoyed the story as a living novel about a lone young female, disabused of her romantic illusions and gaining revenge on the system and powers who used her. I think she was supposed to stay a meek and mild royal baby machine, but she turned the tables on them. I think she was innocent at the outset but became bloody savvy later on at projecting an image that the public adored. The fact that the younger son is a red-headed cuckoo is even funnier. Just a shame she waited until the heir to the throne was born before cuckolding Charlie in return..

I've always had a taste for anti-heroines as protagonists, but especially the burned and bitter ones who use 'feminine wiles', cunning and stealth to reek their vengeance. Fab!

Subject: RE: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 07 Jul 10 - 02:23 PM

I think you need to have a Bitterness Bypass, Richard.

Diane didn't hug AIDS patients in the belief she'd cure them, she simply wanted to give out the message that it was OK to hug them, that you wouldn't die from doing it..and those those patients *needed* hugs!

Yeesh.

Subject: RE: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 07 Jul 10 - 06:01 AM

"This is reflected in the village where I live - the recent trend has been for cheaper older cottages to be bought up when their elderly owner dies and subsequently demolished allowing the building of a much larger home usually with electronic gates."

Ditto. Another thing I've noticed is the increase of 'fencing in' footpaths to prevent people doing terrible illegal things like sitting under a tree that doesn't belong to them or something.. Farmers of course never bother with this kind of hostile barricade psychology, only affluent ex-urbanite "Escape to the Country!" newcomers to rural villages.

Loads of all that going on round here, more and more of it every year. The character of the countryside where I live has vastly changed from a place local kids would just play and camp in "the woods" (anyone remember woods just being "the woods"?) to a place where all green land has become almost entirely fenced in and fenced off.

There's more green places in London where people can wander about than in the countryside now.

Subject: RE: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: theleveller
Date: 07 Jul 10 - 04:01 AM

Thanks for that Emma - extremely enlightening.

Subject: RE: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 03:21 PM

If Big-Ears are the only ears listening does that make them wrong?

Subject: RE: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: Emma B
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 03:15 PM

I have only just felt calm enough to post in depth about this as the announcement coincided with the new governments decision to abolish the Commission for Rural Communities set up in 2005 in order to
"help ensure that policies, programmes and decisions take proper account of the circumstances of rural communities' with 'a particular focus on disadvantaged people and areas suffering from economic under-performance.'

On July 2nd when notice was given the Telegraph reported

"Its death notice, like Eleanor Rigby's, passed virtually unnoticed, achieving just one sentence in a single national newspaper. And yet this week's abolition of the little-known Commission for Rural Communities by the new Environment Secretary, Caroline Spelman, is likely to make a big difference to some of the poorest, most deserving people in the country.

Think about poverty in Britain, and the mind jumps to grim inner-city estates. But deprivation can be just as great amid some of the loveliest landscapes. About one in five rural families live beneath the poverty line, a rate increasing three times as fast as in the cities.

The commission's job was to tackle this. It could, perhaps, have done so more dynamically – and it could have sold itself better – but it did make a difference, partly because, as the government's designated Rural Advocate, its chairman had direct access to the prime minister.
It produced regular State of the Countryside reports – the last, as it happens, comes out next week – keeping a focus on rural poverty. And it persuaded the last government to stump up £180 million to maintain village post offices and enable them to provide banking services, and to propose a 50p tax on all phone bills to finance rural broadband.

Now a coalition of two parties that traditionally represented the countryside is betraying it. First to go was the broadband tax, scrapped in George Osborne's Budget. And now
Ms Spelman has killed off the commission, centralising some of its work within her Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs"

The countryside will be the poorer


Numerous reports have highlighted that much of rural England experiences problems of access to AFFORDABLE hOUSING.
House prices have been driven up by the influx of the affluent.
The already low level of provision of council housing in rural areas has been diminished by high levels of Right to Buy sales

This is reflected in the village where I live - the recent trend has been for cheaper older cottages to be bought up when their elderly owner dies and subsequently demolished allowing the building of a much larger home usually with electronic gates.

Affordable rural housing is identified as an important issue for the generational stability of rural communities

In June 2003 Prince Charles launched the Affordable Rural Housing Initiative with the aim of engaging the private sector encouraging businesses – including landowners, property owners, housebuilders, developers and lenders – to explore opportunities to deliver affordable housing. to rural communities .
Alas there is little if any profit to be made from social housing and most initiatives have come from housing associations

"A number of rural housing providers have expressed disappointment that the initiative has not achieved more, particularly given the prince's backing.
One, who did not want to be named, said: "Since launching his initiative, the prince has not done anything to ease the rural housing crisis.
"Instead, he has stolen the limelight from existing landowners and housing associations that are already managing to develop rural housing in small communities where it is needed. He has overlooked their hard work."

Two directors were appointed to run the initiative: Libby Sanbrook and Emily Trevorrow. They used £250,000 to compile two guide books that will explain the options available to landowners and businesses on how to get involved with helping provide social housing.

Source Housing today quoted in Building.co.uk


In June 2009, the responsibility for taking ARHI forward was handed over from Business in the Community to The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment

Where social housing does exist tenants in smaller settlements may be unable to travel long distances to work by PUBLIC TRANSPORT as the cost may be so great that it significantly reduces their income or the level of public transport provision may make it impossible to travel to other areas to find work or access essential public services.

The population is not large enough to support all services that are needed, for example hospitals. This necessitates a need to travel to access services. People on low incomes often experience difficulties in accessing services in rural areas.
Rural CABx often report that their clients get into debt due to the costs of running a car.
Alternatively they are dependent on poor and expensive public transport.

Of course the main land use in rural areas, agriculture must be supported

HOWEVER, THEY ARE MINORITY EMPLOYERS WITHIN RURAL COMMUNITIES AND ANY PLANNING POLICY MUST LOOK AT SUPPORTING OTHER INDUSTRIES AND EMPLOYERS

As a country woman I make no apologies for highlighting the problems of rural areas
This is not to dismiss or diminish the very real plight of old mining, textile towns etc, the inner city or large 'sink' estates
These too, like The Leveller said, need 'a co-ordinated government initiative' not 'a couple of aspirins'.

Subject: RE: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: theleveller
Date: 06 Jul 10 - 08:53 AM

To see what a complete load of bollocks the Idiot Prince's delusional ideas are, you have only to look at Poundbury (or should that be Millionpoundbury?).

Fantasyland

Those of us who live in the real countryside know full-well what the problems are and Charlie's sticking plaster on a gaping wound will only serve to distract from the real issues. What we need is a co-ordinated government initiative.

I won't hold my breath.

Subject: RE: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 05 Jul 10 - 07:36 PM

Lizzie - Unlike Diana the martyr, I am not every day insulated from the sick or infected, so I don't have to get out of a privileged bubble to find them. Unlike Diana the martyr, I am not deluded to believe that my hug has any curative properties or other benefits. Unlike Diana the martyr, I had (and have) to earn my living, so I can't swan about on photo-ops all day, to avoid the nights. Unlike Diana the martyr, my children knew and numbered amongst their friends many clients of social workers, and members of the underclass.

She was truly a waste of space.

And a very rich one too.

Subject: RE: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 05 Jul 10 - 04:43 PM

More spite and hate from Richard Bridge - surprise surprise!!

Subject: RE: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: Gervase
Date: 05 Jul 10 - 03:10 PM

As a rampant republican, I'm a big fan of Charles. In fact I could even see myself voting for him as head of state.

Subject: RE: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: GUEST,Lizzie Cornish
Date: 05 Jul 10 - 01:58 PM

Fook that comment on Diana.

Did you have the courage to go out and hug AIDS patients then? Did you spend months of your life every year helping others, cuddling sick children around the world. Did you take your children into hostels for the homeless, ensuring that despite their future wealth, they'd know how others had to live?

Charles and Diana should never have married, but fate thought otherwise. They were both damaged people in need of parental figures in their marriage, so were totally unable to help each other.

She was a great mother, deeply loved and sorely missed to this day by William and Harry, who were talking about her very recently, saying how they still think about her every single day, and how they hope she's proud of them now, especially with the charity work they're both doing..

She touched the hearts of an entire nation, and of many other nations around the world...and this country is a far poorer place without her. Yes, she had problems, mainly caused by her parents divorce. Don't we all have problems? It was what made her human. It was why the British loved her as they did, lined her funeral route all the way home to Althorp. No-one else in our history has had a sending off like that, and whilst the hard hearted ones cringed at the display of public emotion, so alien to this country, many others felt a deep sorrow for a young woman who could have achieved a great deal more with her life, had it been a longer one.

Charles, for all his faults, at least brought her home, and finally stood up to his mother over Royal Protocol. He's now happy with Camilla, whom he should have married to begin with. But if Diana and he hadn't married, then many people around this world would not have had their lives touched, inspired and helped, by one woman who cared deeply for the souls of others.

So you see, Fate sometimes knows far more than Love.

Subject: RE: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Jul 10 - 06:07 PM

PS - if that means, in the interests of the environment, that he doesn't want his Lagonda any more, can I have it?

Subject: RE: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Jul 10 - 06:05 PM

Oh FFS! Could YOU live with Diana the martyr? Marrying her was a bad mistake. Get real. Heirs to the throne have mistresses, and she made probably more per shag than Mandy Smith (Mrs Wyman) and Mandy Smith was LOTS better looking (if a lot more common).

Subject: RE: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: CET
Date: 04 Jul 10 - 03:25 PM

HRH also makes a very good beer - Duchy Original Ale (well, OK maybe he doesn't make it with his very own hands). I stock up on it whenever I can at our local LCBO store (Liquor Control Board of Ontario).

Subject: RE: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: mauvepink
Date: 04 Jul 10 - 03:18 PM

By the bye Lizzie, I answered as one who does NOT like to moan about the Prince. I am not particularly a Royalist but for any Royal who is willing to work for the greater good and improvement of the country - to give something back, if you like - I am most in favour.

He has courted controversy so many times in his life but still stood his ground for what he has believed in. The ridicule he has suffered he has weathered and taken well (as seldom does a Royal ever get a chance to 'answer back'). He sometimes seems hapless, but I doubt his intentions have ever been malicious, and on the whole he talks a lot of sense.

Good on him I say!

(though he did disappoint me over Diana I doubt any of us will ever know the whole truth and his personal life on that score has to remain his and her business)

mp

Subject: RE: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 04 Jul 10 - 03:11 PM

He's bringing as many companies on board as he can...yes, even McDonalds! Just been listening to him on the BBCs 'Countryfile'.
The food companies backing the fund, donating part of the money they receive to it, will carry a logo on the packaging.

His argument for bringing in those who perhaps er..don't farm in an organic manner (I guess McDonalds was who they were talking about there) is that he has to be realistic...and his mission is to help as many small farmers as he can, particularly the hill farmers who are struggling even more than others.

£18,000 a year for the average small farmer, for a 7 day week...that drops to £6,000 a year for the small hill farmers..

He's doing his best to get young people on board too, because he knows that without them, the future looks grim.

It was lovely to hear him saying how children need to connect to the Earth, plant their own food, raise animals, see how the whole picture fits together, and how, when they do get those opportunities the children always feel close to the land.

Prince Charles has been ridiculed all his life by the media and those who loathe the Royals, but he's a very spiritual person in many ways I think..and a deep thinker. He thinks about the future, not just his own son's future, but the sons and daughters of the people of the planet..

And love him or hate him, you can't deny that underneath it all, Charlie's a good bloke at heart...

Perhaps, had we all been talking to the trees for as long as he has, this planet would be more loved and in a far better state.

I'm off to go talk to my trees now.. :0)

Subject: RE: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: mauvepink
Date: 04 Jul 10 - 03:08 PM

It was a good interview with John Craven and the Prince came over very well. The man has always been ahead of his time - with the exception perhaps of marriage - and he does seem genuine in most scenarios. I have a lot of respect for him generally and hope his new project does well. ANYTHING that helps rural communities and the farmers has to be a good thing I feel.

mp

Subject: RE: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: Arthur_itus
Date: 04 Jul 10 - 02:57 PM

Sounds like it is meant for Lincolnshire.

I will give him a call tomorrow.

Subject: RE: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: Emma B
Date: 04 Jul 10 - 02:52 PM

Some public transport, a post office and affordable social housing for the young people to enable them to actually live in the villages never mind 'take part in rural skills' would do for starters.

Add to that the prevention of closing and combining small schools as 'uneconomic' because class sizes may fall to levals that only public schools can 'afford'
(Well that's not going to happen is it?)

Oh I could go on - but what do I know - I only live in the country....

Subject: RE: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Jul 10 - 02:27 PM

Big Ears often talks a lot of sense. He was right about Chelsea barracks too.

Subject: BS: Prince Charles' Countryside Fund
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 04 Jul 10 - 02:25 PM

Here you go, for all those who love to moan about Prince Charles, you know, that guy who was trying to get people to go organic, LONG before it became fashionable..and who has helped thousands of people start their own businesses up with his Prince's Trust....a new project of his...

The Prince of Wales launches new fund to save the Countryside


And just in case that article disappears, as it sometimes does on Newspaper Links..here it is:

"The Prince of Wales is to launch a new fund to safeguard the future of Britain's hard-pressed rural communities.

By Kamal Ahmed and Andrew Alderson
Published: 7:00AM BST 04 Jul 2010

Prince Charles and Prince William at Highgrove. The Prince of Wales' fund aims to safeguard the future of Britain's hard-pressed rural communities. Photo: IAN JONES
The heir to the throne has obtained widespread support from big producers and retailers, including Waitrose, to set up the Prince's Countryside Fund.

The initiative, which is Prince Charles's own brainchild, will give a much-needed lifeline to some of Britain's most vulnerable farmers and small communities.


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The Prince has spoken exclusively about his motivation for setting up the new fund, which is expected to raise millions of pounds for depressed rural areas over the coming years.

"I have felt for a long time there is a particular need to ensure that the smaller family farmer, in particular, was able to survive in the future," he said.

The Prince believes that the foot and mouth outbreak of 2001 and other problems have had a devastating effect on the countryside.

He said: "It is terribly important to have a fund which is available to draw on in the event of these emergencies and also [in] the countryside generally and rural communities there is a great deal more hardship than people realise.

"It looks wonderful but it isn't always like that."

The heir to the throne made his comments to Countryfile, the BBC One programme which will be screened tonight.

The fund will be formally launched on July 22.

"People visit the countryside and it's always there but people don't understand how much work has to go into maintaining it and keeping it like that," he said. "

It doesn't just happen by accident so the important thing is to ensure that rural skills are maintained and young people have a chance to take part in rural businesses and skills."

The Prince added that the fund, which will have its own logo and which will encourage "sustainable" farming and rural communities, was "really designed to assist the smaller family farm".

The Prince, who is 61, spoke of wanting to encourage more younger people into farming.

"If we can help use the fund to promote and encourage and demonstrate that there really is a future for the rural communities that will make a big difference," he said.

"I think the other thing I have been trying to do for a long time is to see if we can encourage more school farms and school gardens because if you can connect children to what they eat and to nature by letting them grow things and look after animals it is remarkable how that helps to make that connection again, so people will understand it [agricultural produce] doesn't just happen and come in a packet wrapped up in cling-film or something."

Many large retailers and suppliers will tomorrow pledge their public support to the fund.

Prince Charles has long been a champion of organic farming and in his interview with Countryfile he was asked how he "squared" working with those adopting more intensive farming methods.

"Well I think that you can't and obviously it would be nice if more people went into the organic sector because I think it is the most genuinely sustainable form of farming [but] at the same time you have to be realistic and accept that there are lots of people farming genuinely and I want to be able to help as many as possible."

The Prince first revealed his hopes of setting up a fund to support isolated communities last year.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, he said: "The church, the village school, the shops and pubs all depend on a local economy, the backbone of which is agriculture and the family farm," he said.

"Take all this away and we are left with ghost communities, populated by little more than second-home owners. Is that the countryside we want? Because unless we take action, that is where I am afraid we are heading."

Furthermore, the Prince warned that struggling livestock farmers and rural businesses are trapped in "broadband deserts" unable to access vital services through the internet.

Mark Price, the managing director of Waitrose, was among those to voice his support for the Prince's determination to improve the lot of those working in agriculture.

Mr Price said: "The long-term future for many of Britain's smaller, family farmers, especially in our uplands, is very gloomy indeed.

"Does this matter? It does for all of us who love the British countryside, its landscapes and its villages; and for those of us who mind about food security and the impact of climate change.

"But despite all these efforts, our countryside is threatened as never before. It is changing before our eyes and, as the Prince of Wales [has said], once we lose it, we can never bring it back.

"We cannot bring back the skills and traditions handed down from one generation to another."

It is understood that around a dozen big leading figures from the retail and production worlds will serve on a board of trustees for the new fund and that many companies have already pledged money to the Prince's new fund which means it will have a "starting pot" of £1 million."