𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Britain began its existence as a land of villages and should become that again, according to one of the country’s foremost chroniclers of how we live. Sir Simon Jenkins’s latest work is a celebration of both the urban and the rural village, and a excoriating account of how planners and architects with no appreciation of the importance of community tore tight-knit neighbourhoods apart and funnelled residents into concrete monstrosities.

Mr Jenkins, a former editor of the Times and one Britain’s best known columnists, believes villages combat loneliness. He details how the dynamics of village life – where people bump into each other in a common space – drive dramas ranging from The Archers to Eastenders: “You could never set Coronation Street in a tower block,” he says.

On the page and in person, he describes with passion how “outrageous mistakes” were made in the postwar era as neighbourhoods were bulldozed and people were moved into tower blocks, where fear soon took hold, or were dispatched to new towns. An architectural class enraptured with visions of high-rise concrete creations suddenly had the opportunity to remake cities.

“In normal circumstances Le Corbusier and his followers would have been disregarded as elitist cranks,” he writes.

He remembers watching, as a journalist, as Manchester residents whose homes were listed for demolition gathered in halls: “We just saw these people being herded into buses in floods of tears with their cases… A month later, bulldozers move in and the whole area is totally flat.”

Sir Simon is still taken aback by the “arrogance which defies belief” displayed by those in power who told ordinary people “this is the way to live now”. He considers it “extraordinary” that at a time of tight public finances the “British state could move millions of people to somewhere they did not want to live” – “Eighty to 90% of people who were rehoused in the modernist housing style of that period hated it. I mean, overwhelmingly hated it.”

The “real revolution” came, he says, when Covent Garden was under threat and residents fought back: “The fact is half the people living there knew how to make a row, and the row was titanic. I’ve just never forgotten it. It was basically, ‘Don’t destroy our village.’”

In sharp contrast, families have jumped at the chance to live in developments which celebrate traditional architecture. Dorset’s Poundbury estate, which took forward ideas and values championed by King Charles, is now home to 5,000 people and incorporates private and affordable housing. Sir Simon argues Poundbury’s success could be repeated throughout the nation.

“You can replicate that 1,000 times on brownfield sites all over Britain,” he says. “There’s no problem. It just needs the Government to want to do it.”

Sir Simon, 83, has for years divided his time between his home in the heart of London and the Welsh coastal village of Aberdyfi.

“I’m a complete Londoner; I don’t pretend otherwise,” he admits. “But I’ve had Aberdyfi all my life, and it’s genuinely my second home.”

He argues that “informality and indiscipline” are the “essence” of a British village, as is the idea that every home and street corner is “different from every other and yet a part of the whole”.

“The degree to which planning and architecture have utterly failed in understanding what a village is cannot be underestimated,” he says.

Global celebrities now seek homes in countryside villages – “what were symbols of poverty are now symbols of wealth”. However, he argues that “being a member of a village in a city is much easier than being a member of a village in the country”.

It has been observed, he explains, that “villages are places where people have learned to live with people they don’t like”. While in an urban village you can “choose your neighbours who you’re going to get to know”, in a rural village “you can’t”.

Many rural communities have been dealt cruel blows with the closures of pubs. “There is no doubt they are very important local institutions, particularly for old people who who are lonely,” he says. “To be able to totter down and sit in the pub with your friends all day, it’s like an old people’s club.”

The hollowing-out of high streets is also a national concern, and Sir Simon argues that many European nations have much tighter planning controls. “The big disaster was allowing out-of-town shopping centres everywhere,” he says. “It was an absolute disaster… “Most of them are losing money. They’ve just messed up the countryside.”

Sir Simon, who has chaired the National Trust, sees a vital role for local churches in community life. He argues the church is the “one building” that cannot be destroyed, and fully supports these being used as coffee bars, bookstores, parcel pickup sites and concert venues. Responsibility for the upkeep of churches could be transferred to the parish council, he argues, with people – in line with other European countries – given the opportunity to pay a voluntary “church rate”.

Sir Simon, who was born in Birmingham’s Bournville “model village”, founded by the Quaker Cadbury family, describes himself as a “fanatical localist”. He states that parish councils are “virtually powerless” while many urban neighbourhoods have “no representative councils of any sort”. A lifetime documenting the workings of power has convinced him “Parliament needs radical reform” – “I mean, the House of Lords is ridiculous – the fact that it takes so long to get laws through Parliament, and procedure mucks everything up.”

Scotland, he expects, will quit the United Kingdom. He points to how the Republic of Ireland has raced past Scotland in the prosperity stakes, arguing the “difference is it’s not ruled from London”. While struggling northern towns are in a “desperate” state, London is a “booming place” which “under-taxes itself”. Andy Burnham, he argues, “should have stopped this HS2 thing, which is just ridiculous – it’s a London project”.

Ultimately, he believes the sharing of space is key to human happiness and the village is needed more than ever. And if his book steers a new generation of town planners away from repeating the disasters of the past, a less lonely Britain may await.

As he puts it: “People are just desperate to talk to someone”

– Simon Jenkins’s The Village in Britain: And Why Place Matters is published on November 5 by Penguin/Viking