I have written before about rural decline and the loss of post offices in rural areas. I read this report in the Telegraph about Wrotham in Kent. Twelve years ago I used to travel through Wrotham on a regular basis on my way to work with a client in Paddock Wood. It is startling to read how much it has changed and the amenities that have been lost in that time.
A recent report by Oxford University has termed the loss of key amenities as a form of exclusion in both town and country areas. The Telegraph concluded that the study showed that nearly half of all neighbourhoods have lost services such as surgeries, schools, post offices and shops over the past four years..
I heard real parallels when I listened to the speech by Malcom X about community decline and community value that is featured in the Great Speeches in History series (which you can download on line). He talked about a community saying "Our people have to be made to see that any time you take your dollar out of your community and spend it in a community where you don't live, the community where you live will get poorer and poorer, and the community where you spend your money will get richer and richer. "
This brought me to the thought process of what is "our" community in a town or rural area? If we don't use local services we cannot become suddenly suprised and outraged when they disappear as they are no longer viable i.e. "Use them, or lose them". If we don't get up and make our local politicians realise how much we value the services we have and that we definitely won't vote for them next time if they go against our joint and democratic wish - we will lose what we have. This is because people outside your community only see the "cost" and not the value derived from a local service. Whilst people are mobile due to their own transport or health they can access a range of services and distance is not an option, but when they become more vulnerable it becomes much more difficult. They rely on their neighbours, family and friends.
So what is a community, will our local publican, post mistress, baker, butcher, candlestick maker reinvest the money that we spend in their shops back in the local community? Do global retail chains reinvest the money we spend with them in the local community or is the money spent there "lost" to the communities in which it was spent? Do the global retail chains actually create their own communities that we "buy into" with a brand that we trust and that is why we are so loyal and go back time and time again? I don't really know the answer, but food for thought.
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