It came as some surprise last weekend to find that Queen musician Brian May had been leasing the stalking rights on his land. The news was broken by the Sunday Times, who found that he was receiving payments of £750 a year for the right to shoot deer on his Middlemarsh estate. Many other papers picked up on this story because of its significance since Dr May has become a figurehead of the animal rights movement.

This is more than just irony. Brian May is the self styled saviour of animals. Not a TV, radio or newspaper interview is complete without the obligatory comment from him “standing up” for the animals. He has vehemently opposed any form of culling, but was most vocal in the recent case of the proposed badger cull. The fact that a millionaire rock star raised his own dwindling profile at the expense of dairy farmers on the brink of collapse and bankruptcy is hard enough to accept. The fact that he did this having profited from a deer cull on his own land is indefensible.

Dr May stood shoulder to shoulder with the RSPCA and other animal rights groups to oppose the badger cull at all costs, including boycotting milk from already pressed farmers. As I reported last week, he also endorsed the policy that would make public the names of all those involved in culling, regardless of the consequences. In a cruel twist of poetic justice, May has been the one whose name was made public for allowing shooting to take place on his land.

Now the tables have been turned, Brain May appears to prefer secrecy about what happens on his own land. The word hypocrite hardly does justice to the level of duplicity displayed, but at least he must start to comprehend how the affected farmers feel.

Barney White-Spunner
Executive Chairman
Countryside Alliance

The long awaited statistics relating to Hunting Act convictions in 2010 have now been published, clearly showing that this failed Act is now about poaching, not about hunting.

The statistics show 36 convictions under the Act in 2010, but only one involving a hunt registered with the Council of Hunting Associations. The rest were for offences, primarily poaching, that are not connected to organised hunting. Poaching has been an offence for many hundreds of years and existing legislation enables the Police to secure convictions for the offence outwith the Hunting Act.

The new Ministry of Justice figures take the number of people convicted between the Hunting Act coming into force in 2005 to the end of 2010 to 181, but only six of those relate to registered hunts. A staggering 97% of convictions relate to poaching or other casual hunting activities, including at least seven people who have been convicted of hunting rats.

The Hunting Act is being used almost exclusively by the Police to tackle poaching, lending a veneer of success-through-numbers to an Act that is now almost unanimously regarded as a dismal failure. Poaching was illegal before the Act and would continue to be illegal without it.

The MPs who railroaded the Hunting Act through in late 2004 acted out of spite and without any recourse to evidence or to the practicalities of what they were doing. The result is a piece of legislation that has comprehensively failed and these statistics hold a mirror up to that fact.

The Act, however, does continue to be a way for animal rights vigilantes to make allegations against hunts and waste Police, CPS and Court time, often at huge cost to taxpayers. No one takes any pleasure in the current situation. It is farcical and there is no case to be made that the Act is effective in any way.

Alice Barnard, Chief Executive, Countryside Alliance

An influential new report into the cost of living in rural areas has confirmed what many have long suspected - living in the countryside is more expensive than in urban areas.

The report was launched by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Researchers used the charity’s nationally-accepted Minimum Income Standard to work out that a single person needs to earn £15,600 to get by if they live in a rural town, £17,900 a year if they live in a village and £18,600 if they live in a hamlet or in the remote countryside. A person living in an urban area needs £14,400 a year to meet the specified minimum.

People living in the countryside are hit by having to own and run a car. They face higher energy bills from heating older homes and are forced to use more expensive fuels if they are not connected to the gas network.

For many families in rural areas, it is a constant struggle to make ends meet, meaning they often have to spend up to twenty per cent more than an urban family to match their standard of living. This is despite the average wage in the countryside being much lower than the average wage of those who work in towns and cities.

A single person living in a rural area needs to earn at least £8.89 an hour, fifty per cent above the average minimum wage, just to be able to afford the minimum acceptable standard of living. For families with children living in remote areas the difference is even greater - to earn enough to get by, a typical two child family living in a hamlet needs to earn as much as £72 a week more than the same family living in an urban area.

The rising cost of living means many rural families are forced to move to urban areas. Long-established community networks are broken up as families struggle to set foot on the property ladder or move away to be closer to local amenities at no extra cost.

This report confirmed the fundamental reason behind the Countryside Alliance’s recent Rural Manifesto - people living in the countryside do not seek special treatment but they do want fair treatment. The Alliance will continue to campaign for improved facilities such as transport links, post offices and schools. We will also strive to work towards a countryside where local families are not forced out by rising property prices, a lack of social housing and the financial inability to live and work in the area.

Campaigning for a thriving countryside has always been vital to the Alliance’s existence. At the heart of all that we do are the people who live and work there.

Alice Barnard
Chief Executive
Countryside Alliance