ABSTRACT
Maintaining clear distinctions between city and country is one of the great imperatives. But then, how the countryside is seen depends on a person's perspective. To city people, the country often provides more of an occasional diversion than a real alternative way of life, as the countryside differs from the city in very broad and numerous ways, culturally as well as environmentally. The biggest pressures and threats to the equilibrium of the countryside have come from clashes over development, local government structure plans enabling the spread of towns edging ever further into the countryside or just greedy speculators creating suburbs. The Council for the Preservation of Rural England (CPRE) was founded in 1926, and swiftly became the organisation with the most overarching view among bodies lobbying for the countryside. CPRE has been the one body, more so even than national government, which has taken a holistic view on public policy and planning in and for the countryside.
