Breathe in the fresh air
... but don't forget your purse
I remember going to France with my parents in the 1970s and being shocked that the only water we were allowed to drink was bottled. And we had to buy it! Buying a commodity that was everywhere seemed crazy. I was too young and too ignorant to realise that my parents’ utility bills included one for water.
Back in the 70s much tap water in France was considered non potable - not drinking quality. It was safer to drink bottled. Additionally, in France, drinking spring and mineral waters was widely accepted and embraced as offering health benefits (in fact bottled water’s been around since the 17th century and probably started here in the UK). That’s before Perrier became a hip consumer must-have later that decade (although the brand’s been around for over a century). And, of course, the reason for those water bills I remained blissfully unaware of until adulthood, was partly due to the need to treat water to make it ‘potable’. Kind of fair enough (although as the sewage mounts along our shoreline, it seems reasonable to question just what we are paying for).
Water, water everywhere…
Anyhow, on our trips to France, when we weren’t allowed the nectar that is Orangina, we enjoyed experimenting with the various brands of bottled water. I say ‘enjoyed’ but basically we (the children) preferred Evian - water in its vanilla form - over other more minerally tasting waters that my dad lapped up. I want to say Volvic or Vittel or even Contrexéville but, honestly, I can’t remember which one was the sulphurous one. The one we had to avoid spitting out as we waited patiently for the green salad that was (exotically) served between the mains and the cheese (and before pudding, of course!).
I think the key difference in these waters is that some are spring and some mineral (it’s the source that affects the flavour) - but I’m sure you’ll be queueing up to tell me the definitive definitions of tap, spring and mineral waters (there’s a link to a little article about French water at the end).
And, really, I’ve digressed before I even started because this piece is supposed to be about the anomalies of a society that insists on putting a monetary value on absolutely everything. Unlike those French mineral waters, I’m sure it’s not particularly healthy.
From higher education to the very air that we breathe (more of that in a minute), it seems a price tag is an essential element of every aspect of living.
The youngest daughter has just completed a degree and, whilst she’s done well and enjoyed her time at uni, her overall experience has been marred by a lack of contact time with tutors and very little academic guidance and hands-on support. Such things are aspects of education that require employing qualified people. And that’s expensive. So, as higher education is increasingly commoditised, the costly elements (such as teaching staff) are pared back to ensure maximum profit. It’s horrific how many ways we can come up with to fleece students and keep them in debt for most of their working lives whilst compromising the quality of the academic experience they receive. And there’s the whole issue of exclusivity and exclusion.
And… breathe… but don’t forget your purse.
As regular readers may recall, I’m chair of a wonderful group of volunteers here in England’s northernmost town* Berwick-upon-Tweed: Friends of Castle Parks. To cut a long story short, the Friends exist because parks have, for a long time, not been deemed a worthy recipient of public funding. Long gone are the days when a squad of park keepers would set-to to keep your local park shipshape. We’re all trying to rethink what good green practice is - less mowing, more wilding etc - but this is different. This is David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ writ large… if you want nice parks in your neighbourhood: do it yourself. Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that volunteering or ‘giving back’ is a good thing - it’s just that we do often seem to consider volunteers as the cheap alternative to employing someone skilled to do the job.
Despite the well-documented mental and physical health benefits of being outside in beautiful, safe places, society’s spending hierarchy means the money required to keep parks in a desirable state of care, is simply not available. So, volunteers do the gardening and maintenance and raise the funds necessary to buy the equipment they need to do their ‘job’. It’s a funny old world.
A honeybee sculpture designed by a local school pupil and realised in reclaimed wood by sculptor David Gross. Just one of the nine wooden plant and animal-based sculptures located in Berwick’s parks. Commissioned, installed and (largely) paid for by Friends of Castle Parks, Berwick.
Don’t get me wrong, in Berwick, we are incredibly fortunate. We have the most precious of commodities: a parks manager employed by Northumberland County Council (NCC). This person is the only such (NCC) employee in the whole of Northumberland. Yes, there are small teams who whizz the grass from time to time, thank goodness, but the parks manager is the only employee at that level - in the county! - with plant expertise and horticultural qualifications and skills. Others with such credentials, who were once hands-on in our parks, have long since been cut.
The sad thing is, that both volunteering and gardening are good for the health but, without someone ‘qualified’, employed and empowered to guide and lead a group of volunteers such as our Friends, the group probably would not exist. Although, having said that, the amount of people who now seem to be employed to send multiple forms and thank you cards to volunteers is a tad discombobulating. Presumambly there’s some insurance or ‘covering our backs’ reason that this new layer of paid desking related to volunteering now exists.
In the autumn issue of the National Trust Magazine there’s an article about ‘turning to hard economics to make the case for repairing Britain’s battered ecosystems’ by Vincent Crump. Sadly, I can’t share the piece with you as it’s available only to NT members (or those who buy the magazine - p.25 if you’ve got a copy). The article discusses ‘natural capital accounting’ - a complex financial equation developed to put a price tag on urban green spaces and designed to measure their worth in terms of ‘recreation, public health and carbon absorption’. The figures are, unsurprisingly, staggering - a 2019 report commissioned by the NT apparently valued Plymouth’s green spaces at ‘£215 million per year - or £23 for evey trip to the park that residents make’. The overarching point being that such green spaces will only attract private (and public) funding if they can be justified in terms of ‘the [corporate] balance sheet’.
The piece is a sobering and interesting read. The very idea that because parks ‘rarely bring in revenue’ councils view them as a ‘financial drain’ is no surprise – we witness that here in Berwick. But there’s something Kafkaesque about an algorithm to calculate an economic value for green spaces. The financial value enables society to deem parks valid for investment, whilst simultaneously offering all sorts of ways for private and public sectors to establish duplicitous behaviours around carbon offset. A bit of a hamster wheel of doom.
Meanwhile, health sector strategies include cost-effective interventions to improve health and wellbeing. That’s ‘social prescribing’ or GPs sending patients to the local gym or swimming pool… or for a stroll in the park (here’s a piece in The Guardian from 2020 on the topic).
So, perhaps, the wheels of society will turn favourably towards the natural elements that surround us. And, just maybe, truly value our freely available resources by investing care, attention and money to perpetuate them for the greater good.
Till next time
In a moment of madness, I originally wrote ‘Britain’s’ northernmost town 😱 thanks
for pointing that error out.
Articles that caught my eye on linked and tangential topics:
National Student Accommodation Survey 2024 – Results - Save the Student
Liquid assets: how the business of bottled water went mad | Business | The Guardian
I’m sure you meant to describe Berwick as ENGLAND’S northernmost town!