England's pastoral paradise lost?

Shutting down services wouldn't be so bad if transport links to major towns were better. According to the Plunkett Foundation, more than a million rural residents live without cars in villages with no shops.

For others, public transport is the only link between remote communities and vital services. And yet the same efficiency drive that has downsized postal and banking services has eaten away at bus and train links. Many villages are lucky to have a twice-daily bus service. Some pensioners now face hours of bus journeys just to collect their pensions.

"Transport is a problem," says Reg Stokes, a Salford Priors resident. "The bus service is fairly infrequent and quite expensive, yet people need it to get to the supermarkets and doctors."

Of course, it's not all gloom and doom in Britain's rural heartland. Stokes says most Salford Priors villagers are happy to live in splendid isolation. Inconvenience, he says, is just the price of living in an unspoiled part of the world.

"This is just life in the country and there are many benefits, too," he says. "Most of us realize that people from towns and cities still want to live in the country."

Ironically, this desire on the part of cityfolk for a place in the countryside is creating a new problem for rural Britain.

In recent years, thousands have lined up to buy second homes in far-flung corners of the country, driving up property prices beyond the reach of locals and creating a ghost-town effect when they leave their weekend retreat to return the city.

Realtors estimate that England has more than 200,000 second homes worth some $70 billion. The downside to this hot market is acute in the rugged southwest. In the village of East Portlemouth, more than 60 percent of its properties have been snapped up as second homes.

Simms says the problem with second-home owners is that they do not invest locally. "You might load your Mercedes up with plastic bags from Sainsbury's or Tesco's and head off for the weekend, and a swift drink in the local pub is the limit of your investment in the local community."

So what can be done to save the British countryside? Some activists are pushing measures to help local food markets cut out the middleman, helping both consumers and local businesses. It is argued that money spent locally has a positive regeneration effect, continuing to circulate in the local community. Some also urge antitrust measures against supermarkets that dominate any rural landscape.

Others like the Plunkett Foundation are concentrating on self-help initiatives. In one community near Oxford that lost its post office, two shops, and a pub, locals joined to turn the village hall into a shop-cum-community-center.

Another set up a charity to build affordable homes for locals so they wouldn't be outmuscled by the second-home brigade.

"Communities are being encouraged to take a more enterprising approach," says Fox. "It's a self-sustaining process. There is still a lot of work to be done, but they are beginning to plug the gaps."

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