My CPRE farewell speech

 Thank you all so much for coming.  It’s good to be here with so many of the people I have worked with over the past five years at CPRE and to be joined by partners and colleagues from across the natural environment and the heritage world.

I am incredibly lucky to have been able to forge a career in the charitable sector. When I look back to when I started out over 30 years ago (glug) I really had no idea what was possible, where the opportunities might lie.  A series of chances, maybe the occasional good judgement and certainly encounters with great mentors and leaders with imagination and empathy have taken me into the mental health, housing, social work, heritage, community development and natural environment sectors just to mention a few, and in the process have given me the chance to do many interesting jobs and to lead several organisations as chief executive and chair. To be able to do that in a values-led, progressive sector and with some of the most hardworking, amazing and committed people, has been fulfilling beyond my greatest hopes and - most of the time - fun and massively motivating.

And the best thing is that I have the chance to do it again.  I am so excited and delighted to be starting as director of the grantmaker The Rayne Foundation next month.

Thinking back to those early days, my fear is that nothing has changed and that young people today still too often find their way in to employment in the charitable sector by chance.  We must do more to present the sector and the opportunities available in it to more and a more diverse group of young people.

But for me I owe so much thanks to so many people, both in this room and outside, for all my time at Revolving Doors Agency, CCT and most recently, of course, CPRE the countryside charity.

 

CPRE.  What an amazing, unique, important, democratic, beautiful, passionate and deeply flawed organisation we are.  For all the pain of being a federated, dispersed and under-resourced movement which has grown organically over 96 years, and of being an incredibly broad church, the value of CPRE to England’s countryside and to its society is immeasurable and irreplaceable.  

At its best CPRE is democracy in action, empowering the most disempowered who just want the best for their local environment and who, time and time again, are forced to fight for it against the wealthy, vested interests and careless power of developers and Governments.

At its best CPRE is also the rigour and influence of its highly-respected, expert professional team working away at the highest levels to shift national policy and legislation and to build public support in favour of our invaluable countryside and green space, for the long term: resolute, evidence-based and strategic.  I have learnt so much from our campaigning teamin these five years.

Combined, that national expert resource with the local volunteer campaign presence, is the best chance England’s pressurised countryside has of being there for all of us in the future. 

CPRE is also unique as a campaign and charity in its holistic approach to landscape, nature and society and in the balanced position it takes on so many contentious issues. CPREs raison d’etre is to cut across divisions and divides, to talk about people and nature and the vital interaction between them, to address social, economic, natural and built environment issues and their interdependencies, together.  CPRE has a vision of a better society with a thriving rural life and accessible beautiful countryside for all at its heart.

Of course, being joined-up makes for a complex life.

CPRE the countryside charity’s great strength is that it brings together a wide spectrum of people of different backgrounds, views and politics, in a shared love of the countryside.

Not unusually for a grassroots organisation, it also spends a lot of time debating with itself.  Landowners versus ramblers, rural versus urban, volunteers versus professionals, renewables verses enhancement ... these are divisions which our detractors celebrate and which we must overcome.

It is entirely possible to hold both concepts of landscape beauty and social justice in relation to the countryside, at the same time and for them not to contradict each other.  We need to fight for the right of everyone in this country to benefit from the enjoyment and wellbeing of the countryside AND we need to fight for beauty.  In fact they go together.

Everyone at CPRE loves the countryside, fears for it and is committed to saving it.  That’s what matters.

And to enhance and protect the countryside we have to build a louder, bigger, more diverse voice.  That means far more people (not cars!) visiting, working, living in and loving it. 

So that must be the goal for CPRE as it approaches its centenary in 2026.  To create a much louder voice for the countryside so that it becomes impossible for decisionmakers and those with money and power to trade-off our need for access to green space and beautiful landscapes, nature’s need for protection and the climate’s need for countryside, against other social goods and interests.  Good luck.  I will be watching and I will be with you.

 

Thank you for coming.   Thank you to my brilliant senior team, to CPREs staff, volunteers and partner organisations for all your energy and support over the years.  I also want to take this chance to thank one person who has been indispensable to my work at CPRE, for her commitment, organisational brilliance and moral support (including with running!)...