Land and leisure

The British Academy awards annually a Research Fellowship, pre ferably in social or humanistic studies, from moneys provided by its newly established 'Thank-Offering to Britain Fund'. This generous endowment was given by a group of former refugees from Nazi oppression, now settled in Great Britain. The holder of the award is expected to study a subject that has 'some bearing upon the well being of the people of the British Isles'. The first Research Fellow, elected in 1967, is the author of this book. The award has enabled Mr J. A. Patmore not only to take leave of absence from his uni versity duties as Lecturer in Geography at Liverpool and devote himself entirely to studying a subject of real significance for the well being of the British people; but also to travel extensively in the United States and to observe how that country, with its vast reserves of territory, is meeting the pressing problems of leisure and land.

The population of the island of Britain is increasing fast, much faster than was anticipated at the end of the war in 1945. Sir Christo pher Hinton once remarked that the United Kingdom is supporting a population of fifty million people in an island well designed to accommodate twenty million.' This small and densely peopled land is becoming ever more crowded. The pressure not only on good agricultural land, but also on all land now 'protected' in some way by legislation, such as National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and green belts, will become continually greater. The in creasing population is also increasing its mobility; and greater mobility inevitably means an increase in the pressure on the more isolated parts of the country. While the amount of land remains the same, more and more people are searching for space on which to live and work and play. Partly as a result of the technological changes of this century the number of both hours and days of work decline, thus making more leisure available for the society of the motor age, This book deals with the main problems that the new mobility and the increase of leisure for all have brought to England and Wales. It treats its subject against both the historical and the geographical backgrounds and makes its points doubly clear by a lavish equip ment of maps. Particular attention is given, as is natural in con sidering an island, to the questions which concern the coast. Over 70 per cent of British holidaymakers go to the seaside for their annual holiday; over 4 million people take their holidays in coastal caravans. It must be remembered that the coastline is a very limited commodity: England and Wales have only 2,742 miles of coast and nearly 400 miles of it is substantially built up. In 1958 it was estimated that the loss of natural coast had been about one and a half miles a year in the previous twenty. In some areas high cliffs and limited access have helped to safeguard against too much development of the coastline, but in other parts, as along the coast of the East Riding of Yorkshire, there is the problem of clearing extensive pre-war holiday shack development.

It has long been the opinion of the writer of this preface that far more research should be undertaken into all the complex problems that concern the use of land for leisure in this small and crowded island. There are so many competitive claims for the use of the same land. In making decisions, the case for retaining the beauty of the scenery can be forgotten so easily because it is impossible to give it a precise value in hard cash. This book provides the needed material for teaching in schools and universities and thus for creating an informed public opinion on questions of land and leisure. It is vital that a greater sensitivity to the beauty of nature should be developed. Nearly forty years ago that great pioneer Vaughan Cornish advocated the formation of National Parks, 'where in times of holiday, the urban population, the majority of our people, can recover that close touch with Nature which is needful for the spiritual welfare of a nation.'