Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16 The Country Code and the ordering of countryside citizenship Gavin Parker Centre of Planning Studies, Department of Real Estate & Planning, The University of Reading, P.O. Box 219, Whiteknights, RG6 6AW, Reading, UK Abstract The paper reviews the assembly of the Country Code and its wider project circulated to reify a particular construction of countryside citizenship. The Code can be read as an attempt to pursue a particular moral project and an effort to influence behaviour through the design of a particular regime of conduct. Numerous alterations, most recently in 2004, have not fundamentally changed the aims of the Code as first introduced in 1951; as such the new Code marks not a withdrawal from the attempted imposition of a uniform countryside citizenship but rather an extension and refinement of this project and a continuing influence on the production and consumption of rural space. It is argued that the revisions and wider changes in associated materials and mediation of the Code are indicative of the way that countryside politics is changing to reflect both a post-productivist and post- feudal countryside: a shift that is being performed on the part of government through a more managerialist and interventionist style of governance. r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Citizenship theory has tended to focus on the analysis of formal structures and legal rights and responsibilities (Held, 1989; Giddens, 1979; Marshall, 1950). This attention to formal citizenship has revealed that rules are contingent; they are contested, alter and are enforced unevenly through a series of legal measures and institutions. However, such work has also revealed that informal tools, as means of structuring citizenship and citizen behaviour, are in circulation, ranging from everyday signs, artifacts and warnings which structure behaviours and performativities (cf. Stevenson, 2001) to a range of semi-formal tools, such as codes of conduct that may be viewed as attempts to construct citizenship and to fashion the consumption (and production) of rural space (Matless, 1998a; Merriman, 2005; Soja, 1996). This extension of the range of thinking about citizenship and its maintenance parallels writings about governmentality and materiality which acknowledge the roles of numerous informal mechanisms and material artifacts in structuring behaviour and in (re)constructing citizenship (Dean, 1996; Allen, 2003). However, little of this has been applied in rural studies and in the light of the growing interest in the assembly of citizenship the project of the English Country Code is used here as an example of semi-formal and informal ordering of citizenship (cf. Van Houtum et al., 2005). The Country Code has promoted particular behaviours and set out distinct ‘rules of conduct’ for those visiting the country- side in England and Wales. 1 It is argued that this has been playing a prominent part in the construction of a contingent countryside citizenship in the UK since the 1950s (Parker, 2002). In this paper the Country Code is examined as an attempt to normalise, maintain and reify a particularised countryside citizenship. In doing so the wider ‘Code project’ is viewed, from the genesis of the 1951 Code from the 1930s, up to the launch of the latest Code in July 2004, as well as examining alterations made in form ARTICLE IN PRESS www.elsevier.com/locate/jrurstud 0743-0167/$ - see front matter r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2005.06.003 Tel.: +44 118 3786460. E-mail address: [email protected]. 1 There have been separate Codes produced for England and Wales and this paper focuses on the English versions.
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Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16
www.elsevier.com/locate/jrurstud
The Country Code and the ordering of countryside citizenship
Gavin Parker�
Centre of Planning Studies, Department of Real Estate & Planning, The University of Reading, P.O. Box 219, Whiteknights, RG6 6AW, Reading, UK
Abstract
The paper reviews the assembly of the Country Code and its wider project circulated to reify a particular construction of
countryside citizenship. The Code can be read as an attempt to pursue a particular moral project and an effort to influence
behaviour through the design of a particular regime of conduct. Numerous alterations, most recently in 2004, have not
fundamentally changed the aims of the Code as first introduced in 1951; as such the new Code marks not a withdrawal from the
attempted imposition of a uniform countryside citizenship but rather an extension and refinement of this project and a continuing
influence on the production and consumption of rural space. It is argued that the revisions and wider changes in associated materials
and mediation of the Code are indicative of the way that countryside politics is changing to reflect both a post-productivist and post-
feudal countryside: a shift that is being performed on the part of government through a more managerialist and interventionist style
of governance.
r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Citizenship theory has tended to focus on the analysisof formal structures and legal rights and responsibilities(Held, 1989; Giddens, 1979; Marshall, 1950). Thisattention to formal citizenship has revealed that rulesare contingent; they are contested, alter and areenforced unevenly through a series of legal measuresand institutions. However, such work has also revealedthat informal tools, as means of structuring citizenshipand citizen behaviour, are in circulation, ranging fromeveryday signs, artifacts and warnings which structurebehaviours and performativities (cf. Stevenson, 2001) toa range of semi-formal tools, such as codes of conductthat may be viewed as attempts to construct citizenshipand to fashion the consumption (and production) ofrural space (Matless, 1998a; Merriman, 2005; Soja,1996). This extension of the range of thinking aboutcitizenship and its maintenance parallels writings aboutgovernmentality and materiality which acknowledge theroles of numerous informal mechanisms and material
e front matter r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
artifacts in structuring behaviour and in (re)constructingcitizenship (Dean, 1996; Allen, 2003). However, little ofthis has been applied in rural studies and in the light ofthe growing interest in the assembly of citizenship theproject of the English Country Code is used here as anexample of semi-formal and informal ordering ofcitizenship (cf. Van Houtum et al., 2005). The CountryCode has promoted particular behaviours and set outdistinct ‘rules of conduct’ for those visiting the country-side in England and Wales.1 It is argued that this hasbeen playing a prominent part in the construction of acontingent countryside citizenship in the UK since the1950s (Parker, 2002).
In this paper the Country Code is examined as anattempt to normalise, maintain and reify a particularisedcountryside citizenship. In doing so the wider ‘Codeproject’ is viewed, from the genesis of the 1951 Codefrom the 1930s, up to the launch of the latest Code inJuly 2004, as well as examining alterations made in form
1There have been separate Codes produced for England and Wales
ARTICLE IN PRESSG. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–162
and content in 19712 and 1982 (National ParksCommission, 1951a; Countryside Commission, 1971,1982; Countryside Agency, 2004b).3 Thus the Codeproject is viewed widely to include the associated textand promotional materials developed over time, ratherthan only focus on the set key messages that haveanchored it. This assessment therefore includes changesin form, wider content and mediation of the Code and isplaced in context here with associated countrysiderecreation policy iterations and in the light of widerrural political change.
The composition, tone and mediation of the Code haschanged over time and several important passages in thehistory of the Code are examined here. It is argued thatthe various iterations of the Code reflect the shiftingpolitical fortunes of different groups with an interest inthe countryside. The recent redrafting (rather thanabolition) of the Code is also indicative of the NewLabour political style being effected in the Englishcountryside. The Code is seen as an instrumental part ofthe regime of rural governance that has constructed adominant countryside citizenship. Therefore techniquesand strategies of governance are considered here as thetheoretical frame for the analysis of the Code project.Firstly, a policy context, that helps situate the Code, isoutlined which focuses on policy responses and resis-tance to wider pressures for access to the countryside inEngland.
2. ‘Softening the blow that never fell’: The Country Code
and the 1949 National Parks and Access to the
Countryside Act
During the 1930s and the early 1940s the challenge toprivate landowners’ exclusive use of land had been ledby the emerging recreationalist movement that wasseeking more space and associated recreational ‘rights’in the countryside. This call for access rights intensifiedand the encouragement of the general public to use thecountryside as a recreational resource had somewhatagitated landed interests. This was particularly so interms of the feared cultural impact of outsiders and incontrast to claims for social justice from the workingclass (Rothman, 1982; Stephenson, 1989). A dominant
2The changes made to the English Code in the late 1960s and
published in 1971 are not well documented, yet the wider Code text
was substantially revised, as was the form, presentation and mediation
of the Code. What remained unchanged, however, were the ten key
messages or maxims produced in 1951, as reproduced in Table 1.3Referred to hereafter as the Code. It is observed that the Code does
not explicitly state what spaces are intended to fall within its gaze. In
this sense the opacity of its reach potentially serves to further extend
the range of the disciplinary power of the Code and indeed the
associated materials leave the subject to internalize and apply the
messages according to their own place perception.
view held by powerful rural elites viewed townspeople asignorant of rural practices and economic necessities, aswell as presenting a cultural inconvenience when ‘out ofplace’ in rural space (Cresswell, 1996; Joad, 1934, 1946;Cloke and Little, 1997). Matless (1998a, b) observes thatthe use of the countryside for leisure in the interwarperiod was seen by some as no less than ‘culturaltrespass’ with different groups being seen as pollutants(Sheail, 1981) to a vision or experience of the country-side as ‘pure space’ (Sibley, 1995).
The National Parks and Access to the CountrysideAct (1949) was passed after a protracted politicalargument about rights over land and a lengthy paralleldebate over affording special protection to certaincherished landscapes (Shoard, 1987, 1999; MacEwenand MacEwen, 1987; Parker and Ravenscroft, 1999).Attempts to legislate to provide areas of recreationalaccess land have been a feature of the Parliamentaryschedule in the UK since the late 19th century, withnumerous Bills presented for reading.4 The post-warLabour government promised a resolution to thosestruggles with a central undertaking of delivering a‘right to roam’: a general public right of access to openland (see Shoard, 1999; Countryside Agency, 2002a).This was to be enabled in parallel with the creation ofNational Parks, following the recommendations of theDower Report on that subject in 1945 (MTCP, 1945).After a lengthy struggle through the Parliamentaryprocess the 1949 Act was passed but without the generalright of access over open land—the ‘right to roam’ hadbeen controversially dropped in favour of a voluntaryapproach (for a full account of this see; Cherry (1977),Blunden and Curry (1989), and Parker and Ravenscroft(1999). The government of the time were persuaded thataccess would be granted voluntarily by landownerswithout recourse to a general right of access.
Despite such a right to roam failing to materialise,other measures relating to countryside access wereincluded in the Act, for example; the enablement ofAccess Agreements and Orders (see Shoard, 1987;Curry, 1994) and, central to this paper, the incorpora-tion of a ‘publicity clause’ (Clause 86 parts 1(b) & 2) on‘educating the public’ in the countryside (Ministry ofTransport, 1949). This clause was added to mitigate theeffect of the anticipated new rights of access through anassociated campaign of instruction and ‘education’. TheCode was to form part of the conditions of widenedaccess brokered by the post-war government. Despitethe limited extension of access under the 1949 Act theclause remained and was acted upon by governmentthrough the Ministry of Town and Country Planning.The behavioural approach presaged by the clause was to
4By the outbreak of WWII a bill had passed onto the statute book;
the 1939 Access to Mountains Act (for a fuller account of legislative
attempts prior to 1939, see; Chapter 2 in Blunden and Curry (1989).
ARTICLE IN PRESSG. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16 3
be effected through the creation of a Country Code, aswell as the deployment of National Park wardens andmarketing materials aimed at regulating behaviour. Thisclause represents a subtle form of sumptuary regulationaimed at restricting ‘extravagant’ behaviour on the partof visitors to the countryside. This is a specific methodof disciplinary mediation where groups are targeted andtheir behaviours curtailed on the grounds, for example,of conspicuous, (and possibly politically destabilising)consumption (Hunt, 1996; Gibbard et al., 1999). The1949 Act can be seen as being less about the governingof the right to access but management of the activity andthe performance of recreation in rural space; based onpre-existing rights and practices.
Prior to the National Parks and Access to theCountryside Act (1949) several calls for better educationof the public about behaviour in the countryside hadbeen voiced. The Dower report (MTCP, 1945, para. 44)on national parks refers to the need for public educationabout the countryside and the Hobhouse (sub-commit-tee) report (MTCP, 1947) on footpaths and access to thecountryside recommended that a country code bepublished to encourage responsible behaviour in thecountryside (Cherry, 1977, p. 62). The conclusion of thatreport also asserted that:
Much of the ill feeling which has existed in the pasthas been due to ignorance or thoughtless behaviouron the part of some townsmen. This we believe couldbe considerably reduced by persistent educationalefforts. We accordingly recommend that a simpleCountry Code be prepared and issued. Its objectshould be to evoke a better all round standard ofresponsible behaviour in the countryside and to instilla greater appreciation of the ways and needs of rurallife, and the inter-dependence of town and country(MTCP, 1947, p. 44).
These calls were ignored by the sitting Attleegovernment and the enabling publicity clause wasactually included as an amendment to the 1948 NationalParks & Access to the Countryside Bill.5 Onceestablished on the statute book a series of other pre-existing rules and codes, with a degree of establishedmoral authority, were used by the publicity committee indrafting the 1951 Code. Notably they drew from a sevenpoint Ramblers’ Code6 that had been produced by theRamblers’ Association prior to World War Two, the
5This clause was added by the Tory peer Earl de La Warr when the
Bill was read in the House of Lords (Hansard, 1949b) following
‘representations from agricultural interests’, apparently with the ‘NFU
or CLA briefing bill sponsors directly’ (MAFF, 1950).6The Ramblers’ Code was produced prior to WWII, but the exact
date of publication is open to some question. For example, there is no
mention of the Code in the Rambler’s Companion published 1937
(Gordon, 1937) but by 1939 the Code was being promoted by the
Ramblers’ Association through the press (Morris, 1939).
Open Spaces Society’s ‘Country Code’ and the code ofcourtesy produced by the Campaign for the Preserva-tion of Rural England in the 1940s (Ramblers’ Associa-tion, 1954, 1953; Open Spaces Society, 1945).
The Code project was seen by the newly formedNational Parks Commission (NPC) as a means ofcountering National Park opposition experienced dur-ing the passage of the 1949 Act (Hansard, 1949a, b). Thefarmers, through the National Farmers Union (NFU),had already been openly unhappy about National Parkdesignation, let alone the proposed ‘right to roam’ (aseventually evidenced by its failure to make it into the1949 legislation). They viewed a potential influx oftourists and day-trippers with some horror; both interms of numbers of visitors and with regard to thespecific places that such visitors might use. This back-drop led the specially formed publicity sub-committee7
to undertake that ‘the Country Code should be broughtto the notice of farmers as often as possible as evidenceof the work the Commission is trying to do to educatepublic opinion’ (National Parks Commission, 1953,minute 77(2)). This also demonstrated a conciliatoryresponse made on the behalf of farmers and other ruralinterests; not against the expected wave of visitors thatthe proposed ‘right to roam’ could prompt (see Shoard,1999; Joad, 1946), but towards the existing users andnew visitors that national parks might attract.
3. The Country Code and its changing constructions of
countryside citizenship
At the inception stage of the first Country Code thelists of behavioural exhortations developed by keyinterest groups were not only received as a signal ofimplicit support for the Code project but were used toproduce the first draft of the Code in early 1950. Thepublicity sub-committee organised a ‘Code conference’on June 12th 1950 and invited 17 organisations toparticipate (National Parks Commission, 1951b). Manyof the organisations invited had already been attemptingto instill particular behaviours into their membershipsand several organisations submitted their own codes ofconduct, relating to visitors in the countryside, to thecommittee at this stage. By early July 1950 the NFU hadalso sent a long open letter to the Committee in the formof a ‘draft code’ (National Parks Commission, 1950b).
Intermittently throughout the design and revision ofthe draft Code concerns over the need to draw adistinction between rural and urban were expressed. Forexample, Sir Ifan ab Owen Edwards, one of the sub-committee members, indicated on numerous occasions
7The Code was prepared through the work of a publicity sub-
committee of the National Parks Commission under the chairmanship
of John Allen (National Parks Commission, 1950a).
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Plate 1. Front page of the 1951 Country Code booklet. Image
reproduced courtesy of the Countryside Agency.
9For example, Lord Carrington, Deputy Chairman of the CLA,
addressed a press conference on the National Parks & Access to the
Countryside Act on 29th December 1949. On the country code he said
it would be impractical to have notices and keepers everywhere, and
G. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–164
that he was upset at the lack of stress on the ‘way of life’element in the early Code drafts and wrote to this effectto the sub-committee on 28th September 1950. Only afew weeks earlier he had emphasised ‘country living’ asan important message for the Code (National ParksCommission, 1950b). Echoing his views the first annualreport of the National Parks Commission (NPC),published in December 1950, rehearsed this point; thatthe Code would enable country visitors ‘better tounderstand the country way of life’ (National ParksCommission, 1950a, p. 5). In the same report the NPCsaw the Code as ‘a core around which will grow a bodyof information services about the countryside, whoseaim will be over the years to offer a contributiontowards a better understanding and good citizenship’(National Parks Commission, 1950a).
The process of assembling the 1951 Code took a littleover a year between March 1950 and May 1951, duringwhich time six drafts of the Code and supporting textwere produced. As the text of the Code was honed thecommittee agreed that negativity was to be minimisedand they endeavoured to avoid patronising potentialreaders. Details such as the price of the pamphlet andwhom to approach to write the preface were alsodebated.8 The organisation of artwork, by James Lucas,and the consideration of the other forms of promotionalmaterial and media forms to be used formed asubstantial part of the committee’s business. (NPC,1951c) Eventually the Code was launched on the 11thMay 1951 (see also Plate 1) with the following tenmaxims or messages at its core:
Guard against all risk of fireFasten all gatesKeep dogs under proper controlKeep to the paths across farm landAvoid damaging fences, hedges and wallsLeave no litterSafeguard water suppliesProtect wild life, wild plants and treesGo carefully on country roadsRespect the life of the countryside (National ParksCommission, 1951a, p. 21).
By 1954 over 48,000 copies of the Code had been sold(National Parks Commission, 1954) with more than70,000 being purchased by 1959 (Abrahams, 1959) and afurther figure of 100,000 being recorded by 1964 (NPC,1964). The Code was seen as the platform andlegitimising text from which other materials could bedesigned. Subsequently numerous leaflets, posters andother media were produced in different forms and for
8G.M. Trevelyan, the eminent social historian, was persuaded to
write the foreword to the Code with the preferred tone of this preface
being indicated to him by the sub-committee (NPC, 1951b).
different audiences as part of the larger Code project.Since then countless further reproductions have beenmade on cards, leaflets, badges, guidebooks, cerealpackets, games and other government guidance, such asthe Highway Code (Merriman, 2005). The Code hasbeen promoted through TV adverts and programmefeatures, radio broadcasts and workplace roadshows onthe subject of countryside (mis)behaviour.
The Code was aimed primarily at people living intowns and cities and a particular emphasis was placedon educating children.9 The targetting of the urbanpopulation was justified on the basis of differential ruralknowledges; ‘Townsmen’ or ‘Townees’ were perceivedas lacking a certain cultural competency (cf. OSS, 1945;Parker, 2002; Cloke et al., 1998). Both adults andchildren were seen as subjects needing education and
the code would provide the necessary education to prevent this need. It
should be aimed at townsman, and to form part of the curriculum at
all schools (see Journal of the Land Agents’ Society Vol. 49 (2),
February 1950; also Gruffudd, 1996; The Guardian 2004).
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Plate 2. Front page of the 1971 Country Code booklet. Image
reproduced courtesy of the Countryside Agency.
G. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16 5
both groups should be taught to adopt new, codifiedbehaviours that would be in harmony with ‘country life’and allow for an understanding of ‘the true nature of thecountryside’ (Turner, 1951; The Times, 1951). In thisway the Code was to serve an important function indelineating, as much as integrating, rural and urbancitizenships. The outcome has been to position users‘outside’ of the rural even when present in rural spaces.
The 1951 Code underscored a phase of ruralgovernance, reinforcing the position of the farmer/landowner as steward following the Agriculture Act1947 (see Winter, 1996). The user groups on the otherhand had not achieved much by way of new accessrights, but had actively engaged with the adoption of acode designed to ensure that particular actions andbehaviours were managed. So much was the enthusiasmfor the Country Code that membership of the Ramblers’Association was conditional on agreeing to observe thetenets of Code until the early 1980s (de Moore, 2004;Ramblers’ Association, 1954). Demonstrating a similarattitude when the Code was published, the Open SpacesSociety (1951, p. 91) were moved to say that: ‘though a‘‘code’’ it is not a penal code; non-observance of any ofits suggestions involves no penalties, but it does implythat the offender has in that respect failed in citizenship,and as a self-respecting and considerate member of thecommunity’.
The 1951 Code remained unchanged in terms of thetext of the central messages until 1982, yet the widerproject was extended and new media forms were addedto the standard booklet. This included the use of theCountry Code logo by the Post Office on their frankingmachines during the mid-1960s10 (NPC, 1964, 1965,1966). While it is difficult to assess the actual impact thatthe Code had on the general public, the intent of bothgovernment and various interest groups was to indicateright action, and in so doing limit freedom of expressionand a curtailment of behaviours in order to confirm aparticularised conception of the rural. Despite theseefforts there is some evidence of the Code failing toreach the whole population, with one correspondentwriting in The Times in 1962, about rural vandalism andpetty theft, asking ‘would the answer be the existence ofa country code’ (The Times, 1962, p. 10).
4. The 1971 and 1982 revisions: ‘improving behaviour
in the countryside’
Although previously unreported the Country Codebooklet and supporting material were revised in 1971with work on preparing an updated text beginning as
10The Post Office estimated that it had sent over 20 million letters
bearing the Country Code logo (and one of the key maxims) in the
Summer of 1966 alone (NPC, 1966, p. 32).
early as 1967. The 1951 Code text was deemed by theNPC to be in need of updating by the late 1960s. Thiswas not only seen as a presentational revision, but alsoinvolved the content and message of the Code documentbeing reoriented. Resource constraints and the abolitionof the NPC, and its replacement by the CountrysideCommission in 1968, delayed production of the revisedCode. The 1968 joint annual report of the NPC and theCountryside Commission indicates that revisions werestill being undertaken; ‘redrafting is now in progress andthe new code should be ready for 1969’ (NPC andCountryside Commission, 1968, p. 34). This aspirationwas not realised on time but the Code booklet waseventually produced in 1971 with new artwork and amodified text (see Plate 2), although the ten key maximsremained intact from the 1951 booklet.11 Since 1951numerous local and national interest-based organisa-tions had been altering and amending the publishedCode, including rewording the ten main points, andwere producing their own versions to reflect their ownattitudes, or as a result of pressure to change the Code
11It is assumed that an over-riding focus on the ten messages is why
other analysts and historians have not recognised the 1971 revisions.
ARTICLE IN PRESSG. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–166
to suit their own interest group views. This was part ofthe reason that, according to the Countryside Commis-sion, ‘the new booklet had been needed for some time’and they claimed that ‘a different approach wasnecessary to get the code to a new and wider readership’.They also stated that ‘accordingly a more colourful,shorter, booklet was prepared for issue, like otherCountry Code campaign material, free of charge’(Countryside Commission, 1971a, p. 43).
The 1971 Code booklet uses a somewhat garishmodern style with oversized animals and bright coloursused throughout. The redrafted text reflected anincreasing awareness and concern about the environ-ment and the booklet includes reference to conservationand pollution issues, as well as explicitly placing farmingin a business context. For example, on the ‘Protectwildlife, wild plants and trees’ pages the text opens withthe statement ‘Wildlife in Britain is under attack frommany sides—from pesticides, pollution and the destruc-tion of habitat.’ (Countryside Commission, 1971b, nopagination). Predictably this attracted a hostile responsefrom the agro-chemical industry who wrote to theCountryside Commission arguing that the negativeeffects of pesticides were unproven and that the benefitsto agriculture were enormous in terms of productivity;hence the negative inference should be removed. Indeedthis passage was excised in the 1982 version. On somepages visitors’ actions are linked to costs with economicmeasurements of potential damage caused by usersplaced alongside several of the key messages as ‘moneynote’ captions. One such caption on the ‘fasten all gates’pages reads: ‘A dairy cow costs around £120, a heifermaybe £90, while sheep are about £8 each; if they wereyours you’d probably want them under lock andkey’ (Countryside Commission, 1971b, no pagination).Similarly on the ‘Keep to paths across farmland’ pagethe money note advises: ‘to take a short cut through afield of crops may save you time but costs a farmermoney. The average yield of an acre of wheat is over£45, oats and barley about £35 and hay about £20’(Countryside Commission, 1971b, no pagination). Inthis way the Code begins to highlight economic costs, aswell as the social and cultural effects, of recreationbeyond that demonstrated in the 1951 booklet.
The 1971 version of the Code and its associatedmarketing campaign did attract some other criticismand soon after the new booklet was published voices ofdissent were heard. Members of the public wrote to theCommission to complain about the imagery—in parti-cular the ‘unrealistic’ animals and the ‘unnatural’colours being used were targets for criticism. The newCode logo of a stylised tree was also lambasted, with onecivil servant teasing the Commission that the logo‘look[ed] more like an advert for heart surgery’ than arepresentation of rurality (Countryside Commission,1976). The Code was promoted in the media in the 1970s
through a new campaign featuring Joe: a Yorkshiremanwearing a string vest and sporting a handkerchief on hishead. Joe was accompanied by his rather rotund partnerPetunia. These figures were to be used to demonstratewhat not to do in the countryside in a rather comical, ifnot outright offensive, way. The campaign was char-acterised by the Countryside Commission as ‘yanextravagantly ignorant couple of country-goers knownas Joe and Petunia’ (Countryside Commission, 1971, p.42) with the aim apparently to stigmatise peoplebehaving incorrectly a la Joe and Petunia. Organisationssuch as the Ramblers’ Association were also complain-ing that the Code was too one sided and the implicitattack on the working class exacerbated the ‘them andus’ feeling of class antagonism existing around theaccess debate. The Ramblers’ Association had alreadybegun lobbying for the inclusion of a parallel ‘Farmers’Code’ by the late 1960s (Hall, 1969, 1973), indicating anovert problematisation of land owners’ behaviourstowards users. This point of conflict was not resolvedand led to the Ramblers’ Association dropping ob-servance of the Country Code as a stipulation ofmembership after the 1982 Code revisions failed toinclude behavourial guidance for farmers and land-owners.
Another bone of contention from as far back as 1950was the ‘fasten all gates’ line that was included in theCode in 1951. This despite warnings in 1950 byagricultural interests and bureaucrats from the Ministryof Agriculture that it was flawed. The line had led tocomplaints from farmers that people were fasteninggates even when they were not supposed to (The Times,1962). A typical example was where a farmer wantedlivestock to migrate from one field to another and haddeliberately left a gate open—yet on finding the opengate conscientious walkers or riders were diligentlyshutting the gate, much to the annoyance of the farmer.One reading of this is that the imposed ‘common sense’of the Code over-rode the lived, lay or practicalknowledge that may have prevailed without the Code.It is difficult to determine why the CountrysideCommission in 1971 (and again in 1982) did not amendthis line, despite continuing complaints from farmersand ramblers’ and in the face of specific advice on thispoint from the CPRE (Countryside Commission, 1979;Gear, 2004).
By the late 1970s the Countryside Commission haddecided to review the Code again, stating that ‘yit wasbecoming apparent to the Commission that there wassome disagreement about whether the advice in theCode was still continuing to meet modern circum-stances’ (Countryside Commission, 1979, p. 6). TheCommission formed a Country Code Review StudyGroup, chaired by Claud Bicknell, to ‘review theCode and its promotion as a means of improvingvisitor behaviour in the countryside’ (Countryside
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Plate 3. Front page of the 1982 Country Code booklet. Image
reproduced courtesy of the Countryside Agency.
G. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16 7
Commission, 1979, p. 2). By December 1979 theCountry Code Review Study Group had produced theReview of the Country Code: a consultation paper
(Countryside Commission, 1979) after meeting togetheron four occasions between July 1978 and 1979 (Bicknell,1981). The Group viewed their role as part of a statutoryrequirement for the Commission to produce a code forvisitors, with the emphasis placed on educating urbanvisitors. Its terms of reference were ‘to review theCountry Code and its promotion as a means ofimproving visitor behaviour in the countryside’ (Coun-tryside Commission, 1979, p. 2). The review documentreflects on comments received by the Commission inyears prior to the review being announced and inputfrom the 17-strong membership of the Group itself.Some parties consulted by the Group had felt that theCode messages should remain unchanged, notably somecounty councils, while others felt the Code to be‘negative and authoritarian’ (Countryside Commission,1979, p. 8). Other correspondence looked at by theGroup suggested that up to seven additional messagesbe considered. These were diverse suggestions relatingto: the use of firearms, illegal camping, obstructive carparking, the use of metal detectors and horse riding ‘bylarge numbers of urban residents’ (Countryside Com-mission, 1979, p. 9). The latter suggesting that urbaniteswere unlikely to be competent riders, and perhapsreflecting the growth in liveries catering for town-dwelling pony owners.
The consultation paper produced in 1979 acknowl-edges that calls for separate Codes had been voiced andreiterated the point: ‘there is widespread opinion thatthe message of the Country Code should be directed andapplicable to the whole community, including farmersand other rural residents who, it is said, regularly ignorethe underlying message which they would have visitorsobey’ (Countryside Commission, 1979, p. 7). The reviewgroup went on to indicate that there could be a case formultiple codes: ‘a further variation on this argument isfor a set of different and more explicit codes, eachdesigned for a different audience and different sur-roundings’ (Countryside Commission, 1979, p. 8). Theacknowledgement of such issues indicates a recognition,begun in the 1971 revisions, about changing attitudes tothe expertise of farmers. The group also suggested that arevised Code should be given a more positive emphasis,echoing the original intentions of the publicity commit-tee in 1950. The shift in 1971 was made to reflect a shifttowards balancing the rights and opportunities for userswith existing, and less encouraging, exhortations.
Despite the early calls for more radical change the1982 Code retained its focus on users only and the toneof the key messages, although edited (see Plate 3 andTable 1) remained similar to the 1951 version. Thefinished list of 12 key points were the result of anattempt to reflect popular phraseology of the day, and
the edit attempts to maintain a receptive audience forthe internalisation of the central messages. The pointswere also reordered with the exhortation to ‘enjoy thecountryside’ being added to the ‘respect the life of thecountryside’ line and promoted to the top of the list ofpoints rather than its original position at the foot of the1951 and 1971 lists. One of the two new lines was the‘make no unnecessary noise’ line which was added partlyby the promptings of the CPRE who insisted that, dueto ‘the impact of modern technology’ on the country-side, such a reminder was necessary (Dobsen, 1979). Theother new addition was ‘leave livestock, crops andmachinery alone’ and reflected concern about potentialeconomic loses incurred as a result of visitor actions andan associated feeling that crime was on the increase inthe countryside.
The re-emphasis of certain aspects of the Code andthe playing down of other elements is of interest here.For example, the addition of the word ‘public’ to theline ‘keep to paths across farmland’ indicates the conflictbetween farmers and Ramblers’, in particular over rights
1. Guard against all risk of fire 1. Enjoy the Countryside and respect its life and work (10, amended)
2. Fasten all gates 2. Guard against risk of fire (1)
3. Keep dogs under proper control 3. Fasten all gates (2)
4. Keep to the paths across farm land 4. Keep your dogs under close control (3)
5. Avoid damaging fences, hedges and walls 5. Keep to the public paths across farmland (4)
6. Leave no litter 6. Use gates and stiles to cross fences, hedges and walls (5)
7. Safeguard water supplies 7. Leave livestock, crops and machinery alone (New)
8. Protect wild life, wild plants and trees 8. Take your litter home (6)
9. Go carefully on country roads 9. Help to keep all water clean (7)
10. Respect the life of the countryside 10. Protect wildlife, plants and trees (8)
11. Take special care on country roads (9)
12. Make no unnecessary noise (New)
Source: Based on Countryside Commission, 1982: no pagination; National Parks Commission, 1951a, p. 21.
G. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–168
of way and other unregistered paths. Elsewhere theremoval of particular turns of phrase make the codetenets more immediately obvious in their meaning, forexample, ‘Safeguard water supplies’ in the 1951 Code,maintained in 1971, is replaced with a more direct ‘Helpto keep water clean’ in 1982. Other alterations attemptto make the Code appear less formal and conversa-tional. In terms of visual format however the 1982 Codeuses more sober, colour photographs of country scenesalong with more restrained cartoon-style lithographs.These cosmetic measures mark somewhat of a retreatfrom the 1971 Code’s richly coloured and rather comicstyle as depicted in Plate 2.
The 1982 revisions reflect certain changes in attitude,for example, a frustration that the tenets of the 1951Code had been ignored by some of the population12 (cf.The Times, 1962). Seeking to revise the Code and tryingto publicise it more widely, or to use a wider diversity ofmaterials is a signification of the need to mirror popularculture and to make use of as many media forms aspossible to permeate the public consciousness; even ifthe Code booklet remained largely unread or otherwisenot internalised. The calls by the Ramblers’ Association(Hall, 1980) and the National Trust (1978) to producecodes directed at different groups, particularly farmersand landowners, was not incorporated in 1982. Insteadthe lobbying of landowning and occupying interestsresisted the shift, with the NFU writing to the studygroup to explain that they: ‘did not feel convinced thatthere was a necessity to direct the code at country peopleand farmers themselves’ (NFU, 1980).
It is notable that just as the Countryside Commissionwas finalising the revised Code it was discussed in a
12Although perhaps unsurprising, it is a consistent theme in the
history of countryside access, with a reported ten percent of visitors
apparently presenting a problem to land managers in the early 1990s
(Cox et al., 1996, p. 209).
House of Lords debate over the Wildlife and Country-side Bill in March 1981. At that time an amendment wastabled by Lord (Peter) Melchett suggesting a change tothe wording and scope of the Country Code publicityclause, under section 2(8) of the 1968 Countryside Act(clause 86 of the 1949 Act had been incorporated by the1968 Act). Melchett explicitly wanted to see a phrasethat balanced responsibilities with rights. His suggested,and eventually accepted, wording in the Wildlife andCountryside Act 1981 for the Code’s ambit was asfollows: ‘yfor explaining to people visiting the country-side their rights and responsibilities’. This replaced:‘yfor encouraging a proper standard of behaviour onthe part of people resorting to the countryside’ as foundin the 1968 Act (House of Lords, 1981). This shift inbalance partly reflected the criticisms of the Code aslevelled by the Ramblers’ and paved the way for thesupplementary advice and information for the publicprepared in the 1980s and 1990s by the CountrysideCommission (and its successor Countryside Agency).The 1981 amendment did prompt the Commission todebate changing the Code in April 1984 (CountrysideCommission, 1984) but instead of revising the Codenumerous other documents such as the Access Charterof 1985 (Countryside Commission, 1985; and see Curry,1994), Managing public access: a guide for farmers and
landowners (Countryside Commission, 1994) and Out in
the Country. Where you can go and what you can do
(Countryside Commission, 1992) were produced settingout the (legal) rights and responsibilities of all parties,without actually reworking the Code tenets. Thus theCommission found numerous alternative methods andmaterials for balancing the apparent inequality of theCode and bridging the gap that had opened between thelegislative basis for the Code and the 1982 version, (aswell as attempting to promote wider recreational useand provision through voluntary and grant-basedmeans).
ARTICLE IN PRESSG. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16 9
5. The CRoW act 2000 and the extension of moral
authority
With the election of a Labour government in the UKin 1997 it appeared that a manifesto pledge to extendcountryside access provision would be fulfilled. Indeedthe long running debate about open access and the ‘rightto roam’, left unresolved by the 1949 Act, was broughtto a degree of resolution with the passing of theCountryside and Rights of Way (CRoW) Act inNovember 2000. The growing economic importance ofleisure and tourism in rural areas had been recognisedmore fully by the 1990s (Countryside Commission,1991). Despite decades of investment in National Parks,various forms of access agreements and grant schemes,Country Parks and rights of way improvements thearguments over rights of access had never entirely diedaway (Shoard, 1999; Cherry, 1977; Curry, 1994). Interms of access and recreation the CRoW Act has beenpromoted by the government as invoking ‘a newcountryside contract’ (Countryside Agency, 2002a–e, p.4) for countryside recreation; ostensibly between thepublic and land managers. Part of this contract isexpressed in terms of rights distributions, but also withan invitation to users, potential users, residents and landmanager groups to behave in particular ways and thus itcontinues the tradition of overlaying formal regulationsuch as legislation with semiformal, such as codes ofconduct and other informal materials and practices.
The CRoW Act is comprised of five parts,13 Part I ofthe Act concerns new countryside access provisions andthe definition and management of the ‘right to roam’access lands (see Parker and Ravenscroft, 2001; Riddalland Trevelyan, 2001). The Act also found room to revisethe basis for the Country Code once again.14 In thisregard the CRoW Act (2000) stipulates that:
1
con
Bea1
pro
the
Bil
(Ho
Go
inte
it shall be the duty of the Countryside Agency toissue, and from time to time revise, a code of conductfor the guidance of persons exercising the rightsconferredyand of persons interested in access land,and to take such other steps as appear to themexpedient for securing (a) that the public areinformed of the situation and extent of, and meansof access to, access land, and (b) that the public andpersons interested in access land are informed of their
3The Act relates to; public rights of way and road traffic, nature
servation and wildlife enforcement, Areas of Outstanding Natural
uty and, other miscellaneous provisions.4In an echo from the 1949 Act and the publicity clause which
mpted the 1951 Code (s20), the new Code clause was added during
passage of the CRoW bill. It was inserted as an amendment to the
l by Lord Whitty the government spokesman in October 2000
use of Lords, 2000). It is interesting then to note that it was the
vernment itself that introduced the Code clause, rather than an
rvention from the backbenches or opposition politicians.
respective rights and obligationsy (CRoW Act 2000section 20 (1)—author’s emphasis).
Given the new emphasis on those ‘interested in accessland’ the Code would need to reflect this widenedconsideration, particularly given the pre-existing pres-sure from the Ramblers’ Association about directingbehavioural messages towards land managers. Prior toroyal assent preparatory work had begun on a newCode. The first paper tabled by the Countryside Agency(CA) on the subject was as early as September 2000(Countryside Agency, 2000a). The debate was overseenby the Countryside Agency board and the NationalCountryside Access Forum (NCAF)15 and by December2000 numerous discussions had taken place over theform and content of the new Code. One of the key issueswas whether or not to produce separate user and landmanager codes, or alternatively to aim one code at bothgroups (Countryside Agency, 2000b, c). The CA en-visaged that a new Code might be produced in time forthe 2001 Summer holidays. This proved too hopeful anestimate with discussions about the Code runningthrough to 2003 at both the Countryside Agency boardand NCAF.
The discussions tended to broadly mirror the debatesthat had taken place in 1949–1951, for example; thefeeling reported to the Agency’s board in February 2003was that the 1982 Code was felt to be ‘dictatorial’ and‘dated’ (Countryside Agency, 2003b, c). By early 2003the Agency had received invited views from numerousorganisations including: English Nature, the NationalFarmers Union, the Country Land and BusinessAssociation (CLA), the National Trust, the Ramblers’Association, the Youth Hostels Association, and var-ious National Park Authorities. The changes suggestedendorsed a two-pronged approach that included a codeof conduct for the land manager as well as for the user.Concerns were expressed, and indeed protest wasvoiced, by land managing interests about the proposedshift to a twin-track Code. They felt that the move couldexpose them to challenge and claims for redress from theuser groups. Pressure from the users interest was kept upwith Kate Ashbrook of the Open Opaces Society (andRamblers’ Association), claiming that a ‘Code forlandowners and occupiers is needed more than one forvisitors’ (Ashbrook, 2003).
After almost three years of discussion the CountrysideAgency launched a formal consultation exercise in theSpring of 2003 (Countryside Agency, 2003a, b) whichresulted in a dual code and a revised CountrysideAgency schedule for the new Code to be produced prior
15NCAF—National Countryside Access Forum. This was set up to
act as a standing advisory board on the implementation of the
provisions of the recreational elements of the CRoW Act and other
related countryside access matters. Minutes of the NCAF are found at:
Plate 4. Front page of the 2004 Countryside Code booklet.
Reproduced courtesy of Countryside Agency. Image (c) Aardman
Animation Ltd. 2004.
G. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–1610
to September 2004; in time for the launch of the firsttranche of access lands enabled under CRoW Act(Countryside Agency, 2003b, 2004a–c).16 The 2004Code took almost four years of discussion to produceand significantly incorporates the 30 year-old aim of theRamblers’ Association—namely to provide a templatefor good behaviour for land managers and for the fullimplementation of the Melchett clause in the Wildlifeand Countryside Act 1981. Thus the new Code launchedin July 2004 covers both the resource user and themanager in a single booklet setting out a ‘dual’ code andwith a second publication which sets out the legal rightsand responsibilities of both the user and the landmanager (see Plate 4; Countryside Agency, 2004b, c). Itbuilds on the earlier efforts made during the 1990s toensure that users’ rights, as well as responsibilities, wereexercised and understood more fully. The 2004 dual
16The CRoW Act 2000 access provisions were subject to the
mapping of the new ‘access lands’. This process was initiated in 2001
with the first areas being confirmed, and access being available, from
19th September 2004.
Code is styled as the ‘Countryside Code—advice forthe public’ and ‘Countryside Code—advice for landmanagers’. It sets out five points directed at the publicand three for the land managing interest, as shown inTable 2.
There is an immediate disparity between setting outfive points for users and only three for managers,reflecting perhaps only a gradual withdrawal from thetendency towards regulating users. The 2004 versionbears little resemblance to the 1951 Code, or even thelater iterations of 1971 and 1982. The style of the Codeis distinctly populist, using Aardman AnimationLtdTM17 animated characters to promote the new Code.As with the previous Codes the 2004 version attempts todelineate between different behaviours and activities andmay be read as an attempt at the maintenance of ruralplace identity. The Code enjoys its own website withextensive supporting material (see www.countrysideac-cess.gov.uk) beyond the folded, paper leaflet form of theCode, the front cover of which is shown in Plate 4.
The new Code is as much about a new managerialstewardship as it is about recreation and traditionalland-based activity is placed alongside other activities aslegitimate subjects for authority and the imposition ofbehaviouralist exhortations. The shift in regulatoryapproach is perhaps a reflection of the erosion of trustin land managers since the 1980s and perhaps,particularly since the media storms concerning BovineSpongiform Encephalitus (BSE) and the Foot andMouth Disease (FMD) outbreak of 2001 (Donaldsonet al., 2002); the latter of which helped underscore theimportance of leisure and tourism to the rural economyand, by association, access for recreation.
6. The Country Code and governmentality
Many rural sociologists have pointed to the dangersof assuming continuity and homogeneity in the country-side and rural spaces have been presented as ‘differ-entiated’ rural spaces, featuring a multiplicity of groupsand a variety of often competing voices (Cloke andLittle, 1997; Milbourne, 1997), as well as exhibitinguneven pressures for change (Goodwin and Painter,1996; Murdoch et al., 2003) and variable access toservices. This diversity between and within places has ledto significant tension and intermittent conflict (as well asan extensive literature on such conflict that hasdeveloped over the past twenty years or so). Forexample, Woods (1997, p. 321) argues that struggles
17The Oscar-winning animation company, renowned for the Wallace
and GromitTM and Creature ComfortsTM films. The cartoon adverts have
been shown in cinemas and were available for viewing on the Count-
ryside Agency website from July 2004, see: www.countrysideaccess.
1. Be safe—plan ahead and follow any signs 1. Know your rights, responsibilities and liabilities
2. Leave gates and property as you find them 2. Make it easy for visitors to act responsibly
3. Protect plants and animals, and take your litter home 3. Identify possible threats to user behaviour
4. Keep dogs under close control
5. Consider other people
18The Code in this sense is a hybrid criteria-based regulation and a
spatial regulation that is carefully packaged and crafted to appear
commonsensical or beyond the usual reach of policy critique (and
another reason why such forms and materials may be regarded as
important research subjects).
G. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16 11
take place between those ‘who have invested financiallyand emotionally in their construct of the rural’, andothers with competing constructs and investments; someof whom are living and working in towns and cities. Astruggle is constantly underway where dominant ruralgroups seek to defend themselves against alternativeconstructions generated by competing groups based inand outside of rural space (but whose interest is rootedin some aspect of rural space or activity). On reflectingon this it is argued here that the Country Code projectwas constructed to defend particular groups and spacesand to formalise a particular conception of appropriatepractice—originally to placate landowning interests inthe post-war era who were in dread of the widerpopulation exercising a right to roam—an fear that wasunfulfilled (and a measure never implemented until2000).
The development and changes to the Code over timeprovides a useful vehicle through which to chart theshifting power relations between those seeking to defendand reconstruct ruralities and to influence countrysidecitizenship. It has been argued that partnering thedisparate array of competing interests the practice ofrural (micro)politics has involved the creation, manip-ulation and control of a diffuse set of instruments andtactics deployed to ‘see off’ challenges to interest-basedpositions and linked rural imaginations. These con-structs serve as symbolic and lived expressions of thepractice of either a ‘defensive’ rural citizenship, or theymay be appropriated by alternative interests thatactively seek change as part of more progressiveruralities. Both enrol numerous materials and historiesand talk of different conceptions of ‘rights’ which rest,not only on legal definitions but, on moral, environ-mental or social justifications as legitimating devices(Blomley, 1994; Parker, 2002). Some such materials andartifacts are themselves fought over as key instrumentsof influence and are subjected to differential historicalattachment or some other process of revision (Crouchand Parker, 2003). In this view the Country Code maybe seen as one such tool that has been constructed,promoted and shaped by competing interests. The Codehas simultaneously been devised as a uniform andstandardising instrument of governmentality which, as a
result of diversity and change in the countryside, hasstrained to regulate differentiated identities, practicesand behaviours in those rural spaces.18
Dean (1996) sees attempts to control behaviour in thisway as part of a moral project and as a moral regulatorystrategy that is itself wrapped into a wider ‘regime ofconduct’ where numerous techniques and materials arecirculated. The relative lack of attention paid to themeans by which governance has been prosecuted ormanaged through material intermediaries and mobileinscriptions such as; leaflets, posters, stickers, games andother ephemera is perhaps surprising. Dean indicatesthat a wide range of influences are necessary concernsfor studies of governmentality including ‘books ofmanners and etiquette’ (Dean, 1996, p. 217). Suchcodes, regulations and exhortations towards particularcitizenships are important technologies and are oftenreflected in explicit and directed ‘aspirations to achievecertain outcomes in terms of the conduct of thegoverned’ (Rose, 1999a, p. 52). They can be ‘placed’ assimultaneously in process and as outcomes of complexnetworks of wider moral and political projects (What-more, 2002; Parker and Ravenscroft, 2001; Macnaghtenand Urry, 1998). Supporting this assertion Allen (2003),in assessing Rose’s (1999a, b) work, argues that assem-blages, such as the Country Code, aim to encourage theinternalisation of appropriate behaviours through themobilisation of bias. This process may play on myth,supposition and the calculation of people’s willingnessto accept and internalise disciplinary discourse:
the exercise of authority [requires]ya willingness onthe part of others to believe and not find fault withthe attitudes and sentiments expressed. As such, theclaims must strike a chord with existing attitudes,interests and beliefs among sections of the population(Allen, 2003, p. 147).
ARTICLE IN PRESSG. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–1612
This appears very similar to accounts of successfulhegemonic projects that involve manoeuvres made togarner a degree of critical control and the creation of ‘aterrain more favourable to the dissemination of certainmodes of thought’ (Gramsci, 1971, p. 184). A Foucaul-dian view routinely excavated from Discipline and
Punish posits that the individual becomes part of thesystem of governance and that ‘ythe individual iscarefully fabricated in it [the social order] according to awhole technique of forces and bodies’ (Foucault, 1977,p. 217). The agent in these accounts is encouraged tointernalise messages, and their implications, and to viewthe discourse as commonsensical, normalised or perhapsunavoidable.
This appeal to commonsense is a consistent feature ofthe Country Code project and is praised as such bydifferent interests. For example, Lord Chorley (amember of the Dower committee) was reported, in1953, in the House of Lords praising the Code as ‘thebest fourpenny-worth of common sense he had everread’ (The Times, 1953, p. 3) and in 1980 The Field
magazine stated that ‘Commonsense, and the code iscertainly that to anyone who understands the country-side, is perfect theory in its simplest form’ (The Field,1980, p. 1). The various iterations of the Code havesought, if unevenly, to keep pace with social andpolitical change and popular cultural tastes. These areattempts to refine the parameters of good (and deviant)citizenship and to produce the necessary ‘bespokeregulation’ that Rhodes (1996) speaks about. The Codein this reading is not only an example of such bespokeregulation but of a mediating regulation; a formulationthat falls between the formal and informal and acts as areferee between conflicting group interests. Such rightsand boundary conditions exclude and restrict as a resultof an effort to legitimise claims and assist in theproduction of negotiated spaces of repression (Parker,2002; Isin and Wood, 1999; Maffesoli, 1995).
While research focusing on conflict and on socialmovements (Woods, 2005) has been developed recentlyin rural studies, a further and important focus forconsideration is how self-regulation is directed towardsand upon the individual. More widely, research onprocesses of self-governance are often neglected parts ofthe literature on power and governance (Rose, 1999a;Allen, 2003) and part of this field of enquiry hasexhibited a lack of attention to the way that seeminglymundane, quotidian or ‘common sense’ messages areconstructed to attempt to influence behaviour in thecountryside. This is important as in this lies the subtleplay of both centred, authoritative power and diffusepower (Mann, 1993). In materials such as the Code andits associated ephemera there is the meeting of imposedtop-down authority and the internalisation of powerrelations and self-ordering. In this sense the Codeproject may be seen as a semi-formal tool of governance
that has surreptitiously delineated good (countryside)citizenship. Such constructions reflect the relativeinfluence of the groups involved in shaping the message(and those to whom such messages are either directed oromitted and a distinction that may be self-determined).
The Country Code is one of the ‘multiform projects,programmes and plans that attempt to make adifference to the way in which we live’ (Dean, 1996, p.211). It seems to be a clear attempt at organising andordering countryside practice to instill behaviours thatare deemed both acceptably ‘recreational’ and accep-table in the imagined time/space of ‘the rural way of life’or of ‘country living’. As such the 1951 Code may beread as a formal reification of rurality as much asdeemed necessary guidance for the ‘untutored towns-man’ (cf. Joad, 1946). However its iterations in formand content reflect not only a continuing effort toinstruct users but a shifting recognition of wider issuesof political and social significance—as well as anattempted extension of centralised authority overland managers.
The 1951 Code was an attempt to placate the farming/landowning interest in the light of the 1949 Act (and inanticipation of ‘right to roam’ provisions being passed).Prior to 1951 codes of conduct for various groups hadbeen prepared and extolled by several national bodies,for example, the Ramblers’ Association’s own ‘Ram-blers’ Code’ attempted to minimise conflict betweenwalkers and farmers, but also sought to assert thelegitimacy and competency of the Ramblers’ as a group.This highlights the far wider role and a broader supportfor a Code as placatory device. The 1951 Code is in thissense an attempt to consolidate limited gains made bythe recreationalists and an attempt to mollify landmanagers, preservationists and others concerned aboutthe impact of ‘untutored’ or otherwise indisciplinedpeople using the countryside.
The development of the Code has exhibited severalkey features, including lengthy debates about the ruralway of life, shifting conceptions of what constitutesnegativity and the patronisation of different audiencesas well as the use of a diverse and wide range of mediaand material artifacts to promote the Code. The keyactors have been clearly aware that the Code project isabout promoting ‘good citizenship’, as well as makingongoing assertions that the Code represents commonsense. The numerous changes made over time representa shifting, long-term effort to garner and maintain therecognition that Allen (2003) claims is necessary forsuch measures to work upon populations. However thebureaucratic response to change has lagged andoccasionally exhibited startling errors of judgement oroversights; such as the ‘failure’ to amend the ‘fasten allgates’ line of the Code and the extended period taken tomove towards a dual Code in the light of the Melchettamendment in the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act
ARTICLE IN PRESSG. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–16 13
(as well as the vociferous lobby since the 1970s on thatpoint).19
The way that policy measures such as the Code areprepared means that they tend to support and favourspecific actors and the ambitions of particular groups.This partly accounts for the complaints, critiques andjustifications for revisions of the Code aired between1949 and 2004. The constructed and contingent natureof ‘common sense’ is also evident in this project wheresuch a normalising, justificatory label reflects vestedpower rather than public interest, safety or even ‘goodpractice’. Common sense is revealed to be a convenienceand a shorthand for numerous cultural practices thatinformally regulate and maintain ‘national’ and ‘local’(qua interest-based) citizenship. Despite shifts in com-position the Code appears to be an extension of themoral project and associated sumptuary regulationbegun in the interwar period and a new stage to aprocess that has been in train since at least the 1980s.This more recent process has been termed a post-feudalshift in the stewardship of the countryside (Parker andRavenscroft 2001), where the public, or sectionsclaiming to represent legitimate interests in the country-side, along with state bodies such as the CountrysideAgency, DEFRA and English Nature, monitor, measureand chastise land managers and users and mobiliseenvironmental impact as the justificatory discourse forintervention in aspects of land management andrecreation.
The 2004 Country Code also demonstrates anexample of the New Labour political project beingextended into the countryside (cf. Woods, 2005); it beingreflective of the version of communitarianism that lies atthe heart of the Blair government’s policy agenda(Giddens, 2000; Sennett, 1998). The new Code, as withother shifts in rural policy since 1997 (such as reforms toUK local government, the renegotiated agriculturalsubsidy/environmental protection regime, ‘reconnec-tion’ in the food chain, the new spatial planning systemand various other aspects of environmental manage-ment), encourage not only a continuing shift towardspost-feudalism but also a recognition of a post-productivist countryside. This view is filtered througha loose communitarian emphasis on reciprocal andmatching rights and responsibilities with the 2004 Codeasserting the rights and new expertise of recreationalists,tacitly of the Ramblers Association. It also implicitlyrecognises variable standards of past behaviours on thepart of some landowners and managers and that are nolonger deemed tolerable for a socially efficient country-side.
19Perhaps significantly the research here has shown that accidental
omission and resistance also play a part in determining the shape and
detail of at least some disciplinary tools, these can also result in
‘holding back’ or otherwise influencing trajectories of change.
If the Code is implicated in setting out the perfor-mance criteria for citizenship in rural space it has in thisprocess also helped delineate a separate countrysidecitizenship intended for non-rural dwellers. The newCode overtly demands the maintenance of a moral andsocial landscape devised and strategically shared bydifferent groups. To transgress the Code is to risk beingbranded a ‘bad’ or ‘failed’ citizen—just as the OpenSpaces Society outlined in the early 1950s. The changesto the Code over time therefore do not signify theerosion of a separate countryside citizenship; insteadthere is an ongoing reworking in progress. The advent ofthe 2000 CRoW Act, and the subsequent extensions topublic rights of access, have propelled the latest versionof the Code and reflects the ongoing role of theCode project in mediating between the rural and urbanand between users and owners. However the 2004bifurcated Code signals not a withdrawal from a generalattempt to exert control over visitors to the countrysideon the part of government but rather an attempt atextending the reach of the regime of conduct; a projectthat makes use of up-to-date media forms and popularculture to assist in this effort; just as the first CountryCode publicity sub-committee sought to do in the periodafter 1951. Therefore if the 2004 Code reflects thewaning authority of farmers and land managers it is alsoan indication of how ‘expert’ authority, i.e. the bureau-cracy, are instead attempting to control both users andland managers on behalf of a wider interest. In this casea dislocated public interest and the maintenance of aneconomically viable countryside that requires moraland environmental responsibility that is determined bygovernment.
In terms of public acceptance the Country Codeproject has been extremely successful over the course ofmore than 50 years in promoting and disseminating, ifnot necessarily instilling, particular citizenship practices.Since 1951 the Code has undergone numerous changesof form, content and mediation. However the Code inits various manifestations and materialities can be readas a determined, state-sponsored effort towards a moraland spatial project, reinforcing both particular territori-alities and associated governmentalities. The case of theCountry Code project has illustrated how regulatoryprojects are managed over time with concessions,revisions and different materials being used to maintainthe regime of conduct. Despite the revisions it can beargued that the Code has continued to reflect a state-sponsored countryside citizenship as part of a corpora-tist, elitist network involving landowning/managinginterests, bureaucrats within various government de-partments and agencies and also key actors in therecreationalist and preservationist movements. Thusthe Code is directed for and against elements of thepublic as a method of stabilising an uneasy compactbetween government(s), the landowning interests and
ARTICLE IN PRESSG. Parker / Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 1–1614
recreationalist pressure groups; or, what may be termedthe countryside access policy network.
The Code project continues to be prominent despitean increasing awareness that a generalised, orderedbehavioural template may be obsolete. Any CountryCode is most likely to reflect a modernist project ofordering, managing and disciplining the countryside byits very presence. The Code promotes and underlines theneed for particular skills and competencies while in ruralspace, regardless of whom it targets or what its tenetsmay actually require. Despite this the Code finds newsupporters and new targets for its regulatory gaze—particularly incomers looking to protect their invest-ment in particular ruralities and who have an interest inthe maintenance of rural places. Change in the Codeproject reflects, if opaquely, wider shifts in regulationand attitudes towards the countryside, as demonstratedin the conferment of certain freedoms upon users, aswell as an explicit tutoring of the land manager. Thissmacks of a need to be seen to demand an equalisationof rights and responsibilities, rather than a removal ofdifferential treatment or any actual shift in the practiceof rural recreation. This is partly due to the need tomaintain a Code in some form to placate landmanagersgiven the introduction of the right to roam underCRoW.
Beyond the foregoing narrative, the Code, as regula-tory tool and as political intermediary, enjoys the statusof cultural icon. It has become part of a wider (British)cultural lexicon and has become a rural signifier. Thissignificance lies not perhaps in the details of themessage, or of its wider mediation but of its presence
and the continuing project that demarcates space tocreate ‘distance’ for particular authoritative groups froma wider ‘other’. The Country Code therefore representssimultaneously a continuity and a shift that highlightsthe changing yet resistant attitudes and governmental-ities at work in rural spaces and which, while it remainsin any form, signifies separate criteria for behaviour inrural (and urban) spaces.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Peter Merriman for his input tothe Code research and to Neil Ravenscroft for hiscomments on an earlier draft of this paper. I would alsolike to thank the referees of the paper for their helpfuladvice.
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