Accurate Data
Good Strategy Depends On Accurate Data
This paper was first published early in 1999. Information published by the Office for National Statistics in the middle of that decade appeared to show significant demographic changes. A meeting between Barry Osborne and senior staff members at the ONS revealed that the terms of refernece were changed in time for the analysis of the 1991 census information. While there has been further work carried out defining rural areas, this initial information continues to have value. BCO 2007.
Rural Sunrise, which has been responsible for much of the research related to rural mission, recently discovered an anomaly in government statistics. Until fairly recently, Census information indicated that a quarter of Britain's population lived in the rural areas. Now that data suggests a figure nearer to 17%. At a time when the population of large towns and cities is declining because of migration to the countryside, this will come as a surprise to many.
The reason for the difference in the information is not population movement but the basis on which the government has defined the rural areas. Until the revision of Local Authority boundaries in the mid 1970s, a large part of the country was covered by "Rural Districts". When these were originally defined the title certainly described the population settlements - mostly villages with some small country towns, hamlets and scattered housing. However over the years, the pattern of settlement changed significantly. Urban areas over spilled their boundaries into the surrounding countryside. Country towns expanded many times their original size. By 1970 a significant part of the land use in "Rural Districts" was in fact urban or suburban development.
Following the 1981 Census, the demographic information published by the government continued to be based on the old "Rural District' although these had ceased to exist by that time. The basis for demographic information did not alter until after the 1991 Census. This has provided a completely new set of information, which could not easily be compared with previous demographic information.
The United Kingdom Office for National Statistics determined that the best way in which it could define rural areas, was first to define those areas that are urban, the rural areas then being the remainder. Several different terms of reference were considered. These included, defining an urban area in terms of (a) its administrative boundary, or (b) its built up area, or (c) its functionality - that is including free standing settlements outside the built up and administrative boundaries which are largely served by the urban resources, or (d) density of either population or buildings.
They ultimately, decided to adopt the extent of urban development indicated on Ordnance Survey maps. There are a number of good reasons for doing so which 1 do not intend to explain in this report.
Urban land areas were further defined as areas comprising (a) permanent structures and the land on which they are situated, (b) transportation corridors such as roads, railways, rivers, canals which have built up sites on one or both sides linking built up sites with a gap of not less than 50 metres, (c) transportation features such as airfields, railway yards, motorway service areas etc, (d) mine buildings, and (e) any area completely surrounded by built up sites such as recreation areas.
By these definitions many villages generally seen as outside urban conurbations but with ribbon development on at least one side of the road linking the village and the town, were now included in the urban conurbation.
Having defined urban areas and urban population, rural areas and rural population were then defined as the remainder. This led to a figure for the population of the rural Britain of 10.38% of the total population of Britain. However, the ONS had decided that settlements that matched the definition for an urban area but had a population of less than 1000 would not be included as urban. This meant that many small villages above 1000 were defined as urban by the ONS and had to be identified and redefined for our purposes - a point supported by the ONS.
Rural Sunrise discovered that a further 1.33% of the British population were living in settlements defined as urban where the population was less than 2000, and a further 5% of the population in settlements of fewer than 5000. Including these areas would bring the rural population of Britain up to 16.71 %. Communities over 5000 but under 1 0, 000 account for a further 5.21 % of the British population.
Rural Sunrise suggests that following discussions they have held with the Office for National Statistics and the Ordnance Survey Office, a round figure of 17% of the British population being defined as rural is the most statistically accurate.
Of course, rural life cannot simply be defined by settlement size. Defining rurality is not a simple task, not just in Britain, but also throughout the developed world, as recent correspondence between Rural Sunrise and agencies in other countries has revealed. As part of its ongoing commitment to produce accurate data of value in missiological studies Rural Sunrise is continuing to maintain correspondence with the Office for National Statistics and the Ordnance Survey Office and will monitor trends. Discussions with those responsible for gathering data within the main denominations with rural churches is also taking place to ensure common terms of reference which will make it far easier to cross reference data and compare information on such activities as church planting, church growth and evangelism within communities of similar character.
Barry Osborne - June 1999. Copyright © Sunrise Ministries 1999
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