Introduction

Summary

It is not intended to object to the reasonable use and development of rural areas: it is the abuse and bad development of such areas that requires restriction…. It is not intended that the CPRE shall be a merely negative force. It is part of its policy to promote suitable and harmonious development. (CPRE, 1926)

I joined the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) as its chief executive in 2004. My background was in the labour and cooperative movement. I was pro-housing and pro-people, so it was a shock to find that some seemed to regard me as England’s ‘Nimby-in-chief’. I had not intended to join a Nimby (Not In My Back Yard) organisation, and the more I got to know CPRE, the less I thought I had.

CPRE’s staff tended to be liberal-left, as with most London-based non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and in the course of my 13 years with the organisation, more and more of them struggled with high property prices and the lousy treatment of renters. They were the ‘jilted generation’, but they were also strong defenders of the countryside. Nor did most CPRE members and supporters strike me as the selfish Nimbys of caricature. Many branch activists were involved in housing associations and housing charities, and they worried about where their children or grandchildren were going to live.

Of course, there are Nimbys in CPRE. There are Nimbys in developers’ boardrooms and anywhere else you care to look. I never wanted CPRE to try to reclaim Nimbyism as a badge of honour because ‘not in my back yard’ implies that ‘I don’t care what happens in your back yard’, a selfish attitude. However, wanting to improve and protect one’s neighbourhood is a good thing: we could do with more of it. I do not know why someone fighting to keep a local school or hospital open is a community hero but someone fighting to protect a much-loved area of open space is condemned as a Nimby. Local people objecting to new housing are dismissed because they have a vested interest; however, developers and their allies have vested interests too.

We need more houses, but we also need more people willing to stand up for places they care about.