A HUGE exodus from the cities to the countryside will be revealed this week in a government audit of rural England.

The report, compiled by the Countryside Agency, says the rural population is growing annually by 115,000. People from urban areas are attracted by a higher quality of life, better exam results in rural schools, “much lower” crime and a cleaner, healthier environment.

However, there may be a downside. The demand for better transport and housing is contributing to an unprecedented change in the countryside’s appearance. More than half of England’s countryside altered in the 1990s, even though most people believed it should remain as it was.

The report says only 40% of the English countryside has stayed unchanged since 1992, but almost a quarter of landscapes have undergone radical transformation because of urban sprawl, increasingly intensive farming and road-building.

The report found the quality of England’s natural habitats is “declining” and wildlife is being affected by climate change. Only a small amount of the change was generally regarded as positive — it included the new national forest in the East Midlands and agricultural land returned to its natural state.

The report, The State of the Countryside 2004, found rural wages are, for the first time, growing faster than urban salaries, partly because of the influx of commuters and workers from the cities. Rural wages rose 4.1% last year, compared with 2.8% in cities. However, rural dwellers still earn about 9% less on average.

The influx coupled with lower wages means many local people are struggling to afford housing in villages and market towns. Last year 37% of the rural population spent more than half their income on mortgage payments — twice as many as in cities. The level of rural homelessness has soared by almost 30% since 1999.

William Daniel, 44, is typical of the new breed driving the urban exodus. He left his south London home and job as a City stockbroker in 1995 to establish his own business, Famous Fishing, near Salisbury, Wiltshire.

“Initially we rented a house and I commuted into the City,” he said. “After six months I worked out what I could do in the countryside that would make me a reasonable living and nine years later we’re still doing it,” he said. “We had two children when we moved and we could put them both into a good village primary school, which was a saving compared with the private education we paid for in London.”

Daniel found village life far more friendly — a comment backed by the report. However, the number of supermarkets, petrol stations, post offices, schools and other key facilities has fallen in the past year.

Yesterday the Campaign for Rural England described many of the findings as devastating.

Additional reporting: Andrew White

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