Multum in Parvo - much to lose?

Monday is grey and unexciting. Rudely hauled into consciousness by the unexpected arrival of the builder, I spend the morning locked in the living room, grimly drinking coffee and wishing I’d had time for a shower. By twelve o’clock I can recite most of the News 24 stories by heart and even the ‘breaking news’ on George Bush’s visit is hours old. I surf through my usual bookmarks, check rutnet.co.uk and rutland-times.co.uk for local news because I didn’t get the weekly papers last Friday.

I’m disturbed to find that 78% of visitors to the Rutland Times site (myself included) think that Rutland will be a worse place to live in ten years time. But on further thought, I can’t think of anywhere that will be a better place to live in ten years time. Now I’m passionate about Rutland, and so, I think, are many people in our little county but you can’t, as they say, stop progress. And all credit to the council, I think they do a stirling job of protecting what we value most about Rutland; our unfortunately high taxes are the price we pay for independence and I’ll happily pay them to help preserve the place I love.

But doesn’t this survey say more about our state of mind, than the future of Rutland? Oil has reached $139 a barrel, the housing market is in meltdown, the fabric of society seems increasingly frayed, we are threatened by terrorists, global warming, negative equity, Gordon Brown; tormented by the cost of living, by the speed of change, by what next door have done now; we are characterised by fear. No surprise, then, that the future looks bleak, even for our rural idyll. We may not be a terrorist target but we can feel the effects of global warming and see the potential for disaster in the formerly vibrant microcosm of the Rutland property market.

How many of our neighbours will lose their homes? How many of our treasured local businesses and shops will fail in the harsh economic climate, to be replaced by the blight of cheap high-street chainstores and burger-bars that we’ve held at bay for so long? How many of our ancient pubs and restaurants will close for good? How many post offices and village shops will shut for ever? And when they are gone, how many of us, having lost the things that we loved most, that made the smallest county so special, will simply take our remaining money and leave?

For such a little place, Rutland has so much to lose.