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This research paper explores alternatives to the mobile library service in providing a public library service to rural communities in England and the impacts of best value, public library standards and social inclusion policy on provision. A questionnaire survey was completed by librarians in public library authorities in England with rural hinterlands. The data derived were supplemented by follow‐up case studies. It was found that achieving social inclusion objectives and the results of best value reviews were the greatest motivating factors for much of the development of alternative library service delivery in rural areas, and that village halls were the most popular place for co‐location of library services. ICT was felt to have impacted positively on rural library service delivery and its use was demonstrated in co‐location facilities and learning centres. However, some authorities fail to consult users and non‐users in rural locations. This paper provides public library practitioners and researchers with a picture of public library service provision to rural area communities and shows the impact of Government‐driven policy. It appears that there is varying appreciation by public library authorities of rural communities’ distinct nature.

This paper aims to explore and examine how public houses or pubs function as facilitators and developers of community cohesion and social interactions in rural areas of England.

The authors use data and information about facilities and services available for 284 rural parishes in two different points in time (2000 and 2010) to elaborate an index measurement of community cohesion. The index, created upon a range of discrete variables capturing multiple aspects of community living, is then investigated by using structural equation models to assess the impact of pubs in shaping the levels of community cohesion in the English countryside.

Findings gathered from the analysis identify a strong positive relationship between the presence of pubs and higher levels of community cohesion index occurring within the examined parishes, indicating that this relationship is maintained in time regardless of size of the parish, although different impacts are found in the two time points considered.

As the study is based on a longitudinal examination, it can stimulate research on themes and issues regarding the impact of third places on community cohesion and social capital in rural and remote communities, increasing the amount of information and data available. For instance, due to the nature of information considered, the study could not explore the effects on rural communities’ wellbeing associated with different types of pubs’ ownership and management.

These results provide a valuable and original contribution to the literature related to the measurement of community cohesion and wellbeing with regard to third places such as small businesses and local retailers, whose significant functions of fostering social aggregation and communal initiatives at a local level are frequently neglected.

Findings from this study provide a valuable opportunity for policymakers and local administrators to evaluate policies and actions in support of their communities. In particular, findings provide an original piece of information about the social value of community pubs particularly in small and peripheral areas of England.

The paper provides new and original information about the importance of pubs and third places in general in fostering and developing community cohesion and wellbeing at a local level. Given the significant paucity of empirical studies in the field, the paper represents a valuable contribution to knowledge with particular regard to the methodology applied as well as the potential implications of its findings.

The aim of this chapter is to challenge the assumption that top-down approaches to economic development and growth are the best way forward for rural areas. Looking at the work of the current LEADER programme and LEADER project examples, the chapter measures the impacts of small-scale, bottom-up approaches to foster rural development. It considers the importance of the LEADER approach as a key component of the current rural policy framework.

The chapter provides a discussion of top-down versus neo-endogenous approaches to rural growth, drawing on policy and practitioner literature. Four case studies from the current LEADER programme are used to demonstrate how the LEADER approach brings about growth at a local level, and how this can be measured using a Social Return on Investment (SROI) approach.

LEADER, as a programme, can deliver sustainable and effective economic growth through a series of small-scale interventions by stimulating entrepreneurial activity in the context of neo-endogenous growth. This forms a useful complementary strand to the top-down policy of major sectoral interventions profiled in this chapter in the context of current England-wide policy approaches to economic development. The SROI approach provides an effective tool for capturing the longer term effects of LEADER.

Considering the broader SROI and sustainable credentials of LEADER-stimulated business development provides a new and more robust means of both communicating the achievements of the programme and a rationale for giving it greater prominence.

The chapter establishes a new place-based approach to considering the wider impact of LEADER projects through an SROI approach. The insights help provide new insights into the contribution of this programme to economic development in rural communities.

There are perhaps a considerable few among us who dream of retiring to the countryside, to spend our autumn years in a rural idyll. According to Dr Jane Atterton et al, more and more people are doing just that. Based on their research and with international comparisons, this article examines the realities of England's ageing rural population and explodes a few myths about this demographic group's contribution to rural life.

The roles of ‘conventional’ (fixed-route and fixed-timetable) bus services is examined and compared to demand-responsive services, taking rural areas in England as the basis for comparison. It adopts a ‘rural’ definition of settlements under a population of 10,000.

Evidence from the National Travel Survey, technical press reports and academic work is brought together to examine the overall picture.

Inter-urban services between towns can provide a cost-effective way of serving rural areas where smaller settlements are suitably located. The cost structures of both fixed-route and demand-responsive services indicate that staff time and cost associated with vehicle provision are the main elements. Demand-responsive services may enable larger areas to be covered, to meet planning objectives of ensuring a minimum of level of service, but experience often shows high unit cost and public expenditure per passenger trip. Economic evaluation indicates user benefits per passenger trip of similar magnitude to existing average public expenditure per trip on fixed-route services. Considerable scope exists for improvements to conventional services through better marketing and service reliability.

The main issue in England is the level of funding for rural services in general, and the importance attached to serving those without access to cars in such areas.

The boundary between fixed-route and demand-responsive operation may lie at relatively low population densities.

The chapter uses statistical data, academic research and operator experience of enhanced conventional bus services to provide a synthesis of outcomes in rural areas.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse and reflect on the changing relations of class and power in rural England, with a particular focus on housing.

The paper reviews the evidence concerning the changing ownership of housing and land in English rural areas, and the problems relating to this.

The paper finds that, in spite of huge social changes over the course of the 20th century, relations of class and power in rural England have retained the same basic form, based on landownership. The countryside continues to be dominated by landowners, who now include large numbers of nouveaux riches, while the landless (and carless) find it increasingly difficult to access housing, employment and basic services and amenities in rural areas. Landowner dominance is maintained not only by the rule of private property and property markets, but also by a state planning system that is heavily biased towards landowning classes and against the poor.

The paper recognises that the situation varies from one rural area to another, so that solutions to the rural housing problem need, so far as possible, to be locally negotiated. However, for reasons of space, the paper does not go into detail on this issue, apart from a few references to the situation in Lincolnshire.

The paper is original in the way it shows how “old” and “new” gentry, in spite of their differences in terms of “productivism” and “post‐productivism”, have shared class interests and values based on landownership rights. It is also the first to argue that rural gentrification is a form of revanchism – a thesis that has previously been applied only to urban areas. Data that have been previously argued to show the superiority of rural areas, e.g. fewer homeless, higher incomes, etc. can now be explained as effects of revanchism.

The key purpose of the paper is to consider the challenges facing local authorities in supporting sustainable rural settlements in their efforts to be enterprising and sustainable in confronted with increasingly severe downward pressure on local authority finances due to the recession; the long-term trend of increased adult social care costs linked to a challenging demographic profile across rural England; and increasing expectations around service delivery arising from more discerning “e-enabled” users of public services.

This paper offers a structured reflection on the responses of a qualitative study of village sustainability, based on case studies of the inhabitants of three villages in Lincolnshire, England. The paper draws on responses by 70 voices to a series of workshops held in village halls and pubs.

Significant work needs to be done at the local level, to support the transition from long-standing, organic practice within communities to the creation of an infrastructure which can support the delivery of more services by communities themselves.

Workshop-based approaches to gathering responses can allow for biased responses, and this study is limited to the views of self-selecting actors in three villages.

The paper examines the barriers and opportunities facing local communities and introduces the concept of community to community learning.

In England and Wales, concern over policing often reflects a perception of a halcyon period, epitomised by community policing, when the police operated on a local level and were well known to the communities they policed. To some extent, images of rural policing are a modern‐day representation of this idyll, and studies certainly show that those living in rural areas hold more favourable views of the police than do their metropolitan counterparts. This paper, however, based on a postal survey in Cornwall, a rural county in England, demonstrates that rural dwellers are also critical of certain aspects of policing, particularly the inaccessibility of the police. It then considers differences between different subsections of the Cornish people. Taken together, the findings indicate that rural residents' concerns over public safety are accentuated by their concerns that the police in Cornwall are less accessible than those in urban areas and are less able to respond in an emergency. This has implications for policy.

As part of the consultation around the review of the guidance document No Secrets (Department of Health, 2008a) in England, a project was commissioned to listen to the views and experiences of a group of older people living in a rural community. This article reports on the consultation process and findings. Messages for the review are identified that largely support the literature in confirming the variety of experiences and views held by rural older people, their personal activity related to protection of themselves and their sense of heightened vulnerabilities but also security from living in rural areas.