Big Society - Local or Remote?

I've always been very much in favour of more localism but started to have doubts when it became a "Big Idea" taken up by party politicians. Community Empowerment, Community Engagement, Community Involvement, Community Participation - all fine sounding aspirations though it's sometimes worth the effort trying to work out the meaning of the shades of emphasis between the various phrases. Most intriguing is that we only hear all this talk about 'community' after the actual thing has all but disappeared from the lives of many of us. (How many people these days know more than one or two people in their streets in any meaningful sense? - or spend time on the street on foot rather than going from house to car and back?)
The rhetoric implies we're all going to be more involved in decision making and, as the Council tells us 'in the driving seat'. Well...
Now Blacka Moor has a strong local link. There are people here who walk on Blacka every day, others weekly or more and the place resonates in the minds of those who just see it from their windows, knowing that they are looking out at a place that has a special life of its own reassuringly independent of the preoccupations of present day humans. So you would expect this to be good example of a place where the localism agenda should be shown to work.
Yesterday on the television Parliament Channel the Minister for Civil Society, Nick Hurd, was fielding some difficult questions from the Select Committee on the Big Society, as Mr Cameron has chosen to call it. You would have thought he would not have had time as he's still dealing with my letter of 1st January that Nick Clegg has forwarded to him. Alongside him was Economic Secretary to the Treasury Justine Greening who was also struggling. After questions from LibDem MP for Leeds North West Greg Mulholland she tried to charm him by saying "I don't know why you come to be so sceptical Greg" - which was met from several committee members with the immediate response "It's our job!!" Precisely, and those who see scepticism as something to be frowned at should really study the scientific method .

Despite Blacka Moor's place in the hearts and minds of local people attendance at the Reserve Advisory Meetings is erratic and sparse. At the last meeting there were three people employed by Sheffield Wildlife Trust, three Friends of Blacka Moor, three who were members or supporters or trustees of Sheffield Wildlife Trust and one other who I think was a local bird watcher but may have been SWT. (I tend to see the SWT supporters as a bit like the supporters of despotic Arab regimes - a kind of rent-a-mob out to counter the progessive forces.) Over the years many others have come and declined to come any more. Mostly they say there’s no point because “that lot don’t listen”. In this they are wrong – the wildlife trust does listen. It's just that they don't listen to local people. The people they do listen to are each other and other conservation workers. Oh, and anyone who has funds to award grants.

Charities like Wildlife Trusts are at this moment working out what they could gain from the Big Society. And each time the subject is discussed in the media the part to be played by charities is referred to. Now look at Sheffield Wildlife Trust. They are responsible for Blacka. But they have no permanent presence here. This is a large and very special site. Yet weeks can, and sometimes do, go by with no SWT employee coming. Is this localism? The lady who goes by the name of Reserve Manager actually lives way out in Edale. She has had two bouts of maternity leave during which Blacka has sometimes and sometimes not been blessed with a temporary replacement. The Chief Executive has almost certainly not been here for ages* and also, I believe lives out of Sheffield**. There is a headquarters 5 or so miles away where the dominant activity is bureaucratic and applying for grants that help to keep the place going. There are small jobs to be done on the site which could be finished off in an hour or so but have been waiting years to have any attention. Can anyone seriously see a future with a dynamic relationship between the ‘local community’ and this charity?

I nearly forgot to mention that the grazier who is a 'key partner' and responsible to a large extent in implementing the management plan, has a farm that is about 11 miles away as the crow flies, at least double that along the winding roads. In a good week he visits twice. Sheffield Wildlife Trust has tried to get local people to watch out for the farm stock with a 'Lookering' scheme but they don't say how many have taken this up or how often they visit. The most regular visitors are as sceptical as Mr Mulholland and refuse to have anything to do with it, considering there's something fraudulent about it whose main value is to contribute to SWT's PR agenda.

* He didn't reply when I asked him about his visits to Blacka.

** This, he now informs me, is wrong. He does live in Sheffield.