C - An Appraisal of Arnside Parish
C. An Appraisal of Arnside Parish
C.1 Facts and Figures
C.1.1 Some desirable kinds of firm, up-to-date statistics about Arnside are not easy to obtain. But the following websites – among other sources – provided information for the Steering Group to work with and to use as base-lines:-
C.1.2 Statistics from the 2001 Census are at present available only down to Ward level (Arnside is part of the Arnside and Beetham Ward): current figures for the Parish of Arnside will not be at hand before October 2003. (One of the recommendations of the Action Plan is that these statistics be made widely available by the Parish Council.)
Nevertheless, at a general level some similarities and differences between Arnside and the other settlements in the Ward are known, so that certain inferences about Arnside can reasonably be drawn from the available 2001 Census results, and certain figures are manifestly applicable. Respects in which there appear to be significant divergences from national averages are well worth bearing in mind:-
- The average age of Arnside residents is almost certainly just over 50, as against an average age of 38.6 in England and Wales as a whole. Proportionately, the national population has half as many under-20-year-olds again as the population of Arnside, while Arnside has around twice as many 60-plus residents.
- The Parish has considerably more married or re-married people than the national average, around half the number of single people, and more than one-and-a-half times as many widowed residents.
- One-person households as such appear to be at the national average, but there are half as many pensioners again living alone, and more than twice as many other all-pensioner households. There are not many more than half of the national average of households containing dependent children.
- Probably more than twice as many people in Arnside are retired as in the country generally.
- There is almost no ethnic mix whatever in Arnside, and religions other than Christianity are barely represented in the population.
- Far fewer residents have no formal qualifications than in the general population, and far more are qualified to degree level or higher.
- Owner-occupation is very substantially higher than the national average (and significantly higher than the South Lakeland average).
- Only half of the national average number of households are without a car or van.
C.2 State of the Parish
For reasons that begin to emerge from even the briefest description of the Parish, it cannot be argued that Arnside is typically ‘rural’ – a survey in 1997 showed that 42% of rural parishes had no shop, 70% no general store, 43% no post office, 75% no daily bus service, 49% no school, 83% no GP, etc. – but its general nature and its physical situation make it vulnerable to some of the pressures that are bearing upon rural settlements in general. Any crisis in farming has only limited applicability to Arnside, but the Foot and Mouth outbreak of 2001 was, at least temporarily, damaging to tourism and business in the Parish. Furthermore, over the past ten years or so, many of the shops that have been lost have left a gap in provision – there is no longer, for instance, a pet-shop, a haberdasher, a hardware store or a shoe-shop in the village; more critically, the two banks have gone, and it is no longer possible to buy petrol in Arnside. In most cases, though not all, one type of business has been replaced by another, but there is perhaps a general tendency towards more visitor-oriented facilities. Moreover, it seems – evidence may be available when full Census results are published – that young people tend to move out of the Parish, with few young families coming in from the outside. There are relatively few job-opportunities in Arnside, and virtually no facilities for those seeking to start up new businesses.
Throughout its work, which included consultation of various kinds at all stages, the Parish Plan Steering Group was conscious of the fact that many aspects of life in Arnside Parish are broadly satisfactory to the huge majority of residents. (Informal confirmation of this can be read off the written comments left at the November 2002 Parish Plan Open Day, and more formal confirmation taken from the figures for answers to many questions in the questionnaire.) Thus, for instance, caravan parks, which are seen as constituing a problem for some parishes, appear to create few if any difficulties for Arnside. More positively, there are all kinds of activities in the Parish that simply go on without significant hitch. The success and stability in such areas is not accidental, but is generally attributable to the work of committed individuals and groups. They deserve to be congratulated, as do the volunteers who devote so much time and effort to helping the old, the young and other categories of people in the Parish. It has not seemed right that a Parish Plan should seek to intervene or interfere in these activities or features of Parish life. Of course, where a sign is given that an activity is under some kind of threat, or if some possibility of further improvement crops up during the planning process, it is part of the function of a Parish Plan to try to take account of these factors.
Good examples of areas of Parish life where all appears to be more or less as it should be are the churches on the one hand, and the sports / recreation / social groups on the other. Groups, societies and clubs exist in abundance in Arnside (more than 50 can instantly be identified from the Broadsheet and the Arnside Directory). Most – even all – inevitably encounter problems from time to time (and there are some signs of increasing difficulties in recruiting to club offices), but there are also mechanisms – both inside and outside the Parish – for helping with these, so that the general situation is largely self-regulating. It should also be acknowledged that all of the appropriate groups seem to go out of their way to draw young people into their activities. As far as the three churches are concerned, it is self-evident that their existence and good functioning is of major importance to a large number of Arnside residents. More than this, church-goers would not be the only residents to suffer from any major loss in this area. In various ways, the churches contribute to the general well-being of the Parish. (The Methodist Church, for instance, not only has a Monday Morning Meeting and a Wednesday fellowship: it also provides space and facilities – on a non-denominational basis – for many village organisations, including Age Concern, Girl Guides, the Village Show, and a youth group.). There is no obvious reason to suppose that a Parish Plan should do anything other than express the hope that this general situation may long continue.
However, if this puts Arnside’s problems into perspective, it should not cause anyone to underestimate them; nor is it intended to belittle the perception of problems on the part of residents. For example, it is obvious to all – residents and visitors alike – that parking and traffic-circulation difficulties in the Parish are both real and increasing at a significant rate. Most residents, moreover, are acutely aware of some area or other in which practical improvements to services and facilities in the Parish are badly needed. And worries about what may happen in the future should by no means be neglected. Anticipation of possible losses and problems to come is both prudent and necessary: there are very clearly points on which action needs to be taken soon in order to maximise the chances of preserving the best of what Arnside already has.
In short, in addition to experiencing some – although not all – of the difficulties and threats currently associated with rural parishes, Arnside has its own particular problems, which are either created or accentuated by features distinctive of it. By and large, its residents enjoy living in Arnside, and a large majority are concerned to preserve most or all aspects of its particular character.
C.3 Distinctive features of the Parish
C.3.1 At all stages of the consultation process, it has been striking that while residents are conscious of enjoying Arnside – and many former visitors come to live or retire here – because it is in some sense a genuine village community in an extremely attractive natural, ‘country’ setting, they also see its range of facilities and its transport links as indispensable to the way of life of the Parish. This makes for a delicate mix of factors that is very characteristic of Arnside. It also means that significant changes to the landscape, or loss of certain key facilities, including the Post Office and the passenger rail service, would radically change the Parish, both directly and indirectly. There are very few, if any, who believe that such changes would be for the better.
C.3.2 This raises, in turn, the question of the extent to which the range of facilities and the transport links are supported by, even dependent upon, the number of visitors to Arnside. An extensive survey of visitors – and the Action Plan envisages a number of ways in which information should be gathered – would take account of those who stay in both static and mobile caravans in the Parish, and of how many of these, for reasons relating to the situation of caravan parks, gravitate towards Silverdale rather than Arnside. It might even wish to consider patterns of relatives’ visits to Arnside, since the scale of these appears to be considerable. But the fact is that – caravans and relatives apart – there are relatively few places for overnight stays in the Parish, and the great majority of visitors come here for the day or part of the day. (The geographical situation of Arnside is such that almost no people or vehicles at all pass through on their way to somewhere else.) Not only in the summer ’season’, but at weekends throughout the year, the numbers in which they come are high – by the end of the year we may have some idea of how high. The presence and level of visitors is very much a distinctive feature of the Parish and constitutes a reality that has always to be taken into account.
C.3.3 It is clear from ‘Facts and Figures’ above that Arnside has an unusual – though doubtless far from unique – demography. The very high proportion of over-60s is perhaps the most obvious aspect of this, but the lack of any ethnic mix, and the high level of education of the population in general are other major factors. Yet, once more, it is the conjunction of these with some contrasting features that makes for the distinctive character of Arnside. For instance, the Parish would be very different – and impoverished – without its school, as well as without those of its sporting and other activities that are largely for younger people. Bustle and mixed activities on the Memorial Field are, in fact, as characteristic of Arnside as elderly people eating ice-cream on the Prom.
C.3.4 What is produced by the above elements is a particular mixture of opportunities on the one hand and threats or fears on the other that is itself highly characteristic of Arnside as a whole. The landscape and setting are massive advantages, and the range of facilities a very great benefit to all. The number of visitors, to one extent or another, helps to sustain those facilities. Many retired people have the time to help in the running of the Parish; and, as a result of legacies, there is occasionally earmarked money available where other parishes have none. At the same time, there are real and potential threats to the landscape (insensitive building, inappropriate activities), visitors on a large scale bring obvious difficulties (traffic congestion, parking), and an elderly population is in various ways at risk of losing the vitality and resources associated with the presence of younger people.
