This blog has evolved from a book of the same name. Rurality is interpreted in many ways depending on individual encounters with rural space and this leads to different ways of conceiving the social and economic challenges that rural communities face. The blog represents the personal views of Professor Gary Bosworth, who is a Visiting Professor of Rural Entrepreneurship in Lincoln International Business School and Professor of Entrepreneurship at Northumbria University.
//A great event at Queen’s University, Belfast, last week. After 2 days of transatlantic rural research with the TARRN network , and a tour of Stormont, the new Migration, Inter-Connectivity and Regional Development (MICaRD) network was launched with a discussion about the challenges and opportunities associated with migrant worker in rural labour markets. A note of the meeting will appear in Regions shortly but here is a sneak preview: Regions article may16
//Following a presentation to the CPRE‘s event on Lincolnshire’s rural economy on 1st March 2016, it was evident that there was some discontent with the way that “sustainable development” is being applied in local planning matter. Instead, this note offers some thoughts about the prospect for applying “liveability” as an alternative viewpoint.
I also attach the slides that I presented
at the event here:
//Thanks for Ignazio Cabras, David Higgins and David Preece for all your efforts in editing this volume. Thanks also to Claire Markham for doing most of the work on our chapter, “The village pub in the 21st Century: Embeddededness and the local”, accessible from our University repository: http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/.
In our chapter, we argue that “the local” as village pubs have traditionally been called, is increasingly having to serve a wider target audience and offer more diverse products and services to remain commercially viable. Throughout the book, there is clear evidence that the brewing industry globally is seeing both a groundswell of new entrants and microbreweries at one end whilst the big firms are consolidating into fewer increasingly dominant global brands. From the other chapters, it is interesting to see that the problem of “tied” pubs is not unique to the UK and also to learn that the fermentation of alcoholic drinks dates back some 7-9,000 years in China and perhaps a similar date in Mesopotamia. Beer brewing itself was also established in Egypt from about 5000BC.
The book can be purchased from the publishers, Palgrave: http://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781137466174#
You might also be interested in another paper that I have written with Victoria Ellis on Microbreweries in the UK which appears in the British Food Journal: Microbreweries paper for BFJ FINAL
//The CLA has produced a document entitled “standing up for rural businesses” that both highlights diversity of today’s rural economy and identifies opportunities for growth. To fulfil the potential of our rural economies they call for universal broadband and mobile services, a planning system that unlocks investment, urgent steps to address the “housing crisis” in rural areas and an effective framework or rural development, which is currently very fragmented from the EU down to local policy levels. A full report is due soon, but the summary report can be accessed here: https://www.cla.org.uk/node/7738
//Following the publication of our Rural Studies paper on the unequal coverage and take-up of broadband internet in rural areas, David Cameron introduces a new policy pledging that everyone will have a legal right to request a 10Mbps broadband speed by 2020: http://www.rsnonline.org.uk/services/david-cameron-pledges-faster-broadband
The paper, written with Koen Salemink and Dirk Stijker from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands can be downloaded from our repository: Rural Development in the Digital Age
