El caso particular de la Casería de Jesús

Unsurprisingly, distance, i.e. between places of residence and centres of employment, recreation and education, was a dimension of place that was discussed in depth by participants, as it shaped their everyday mobilities;

We’re at least twenty miles -one way that is- thirty [miles] even from centres of work. Caernarfon is the closest to here, Bangor even. So it effects your chances of finding work if you want to live here, and it effects the time you spend away from home, and the cost of course.

(Dylan, 40s, remote hamlet)¹⁶ Here, Dylan highlights the limited employment opportunities in his locality, which forces rural residents to travel significant distances to work on a daily basis. Indeed, for economically active participants¹⁷, including those that were self-employed, commuting and/or long-distance work-related travel could exceed sixty miles a day. Dylan also draws our attention to the interconnected nature of time and space, as time spent travelling detracts from time that could be spent with family or achieving other goals. Finally, there is also an economic dimension to Dylan’s narrative, as he hints towards the costly nature of such mobilities; a dimension that I will return to later on in this section.

One of the most significant points raised by most participants was the centrality of the car to their everyday mobilities. Indeed, each participating household had access to at least one car, with six out of 11 households having access to two. The car was often deemed to be “necessary” (Alys, 30s, remote hamlet)¹⁸, with participants often presenting themselves as having little or no alternative; “we have to drive everywhere, we don’t have a choice” (Eluned, 50s, small village)¹⁹. For some, the car had became a “symbol that you’re not confined to your square mile like it used to be way back when” which they believed that the desire for a car had become “ingrained in the psyche here” (Rhian, 50s, isolated dwelling)²⁰. Clearly then, the use of the car had become ingrained into the social norms of the localities in which these people live, making it difficult for them to imagine alternative ways of getting around;

16All of Dylan’s excerpts used in this chapter are my interpretations from the source Welsh-language data.

To see the source data used for this chapter, please see Appendix I.

17 13 out of 19 economically active participants mentioned using the car for commuting or work-related travel (including 7 self-employed participants, and 2 seasonal workers – 20 year old Cai and 22 year old Glesni)

18All of Alys’ excerpts used in this chapter are my interpretations from the source Welsh-language data. To see the source data used for this chapter, please see Appendix I.

19All of Eluned’s excerpts used in this chapter are my interpretations from the source Welsh-language data.

To see the source data used for this chapter, please see Appendix I.

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Everything is further away more or less. If you live in a town or something you can walk to the shops […] But [here] everyone drive cars. Even though it’s only a mile and a half to the nearest shop, people would rather go in their car than use a bike or walk. People think they have to use the car, that it can’t be helped, that they have to take the car everywhere […]

(Cai, 20s, isolated dwelling)²¹ The prevalence of car use in the sample clearly shows that such patterns of everyday mobility are heavily reliant on a system of automobility, which has set in train new socialities, of commuting, family life, community, and leisure (Urry, 2004; 28), particularly in rural Britain. For example, the growth of car ownership during the latter half of the twentieth century encouraged new journeys to be made that were previously not possible in a system of public mobility (Ibid.), which meant that people ventured further from their places of residence than ever before. In rural places, the consequent weakening of geographical ties between residences and workplaces meant that long-distance commuting became a viable alternative to out-migration (Green, Hogarth & Shackleton 1999; Milbourne & Kitchen, 2014). For those who dwell in the countryside then, car ownership can be viewed as being both economically and socially beneficial (Lucas & De Vine, 2008). Despite the increased flexibility afforded by a system of automobility however, the limited availability of skilled employment opportunities and the prevalence of low wage sectors in remoter areas means that out-migration is still a reality for some, particularly in the case of economically active young people (Stockdale, 2004);

A co-worker of mine, her contract is coming to an end soon and she’s said that she’s moving away after that. The cost is too much. Say that she gets a job in Caernarfon, she’d have to travel sixty miles a day, which is what, a tenner to fifteen pounds a day [in petrol costs] maybe? So that’s the best part of a hundred pounds a week just on petrol. So what you get is people of working-age leaving the community -they have to leave. You know, the Dwyfor-Meirionnydd electorate has the lowest average income in the UK, and so between earning less [here] and the fact that everything costs more because of transport costs -you know, it effects the cost of food and fuel that arrive here- it’s just unsustainable [...]

(Dylan, 40s, remote hamlet)

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Reflecting on the experiences of a colleague, Dylan provides a valuable insight on occasions where out-migration is very likely. Drawing attention to the economic dimensions of place once again, he highlights the dual issue of lower than average incomes and the higher costs of raw materials, which have social implications as young people are forced out of the area. Dylan asserts that remaining in the area is both socially and economically “unsustainable”. It could be additionally argued that the greater demand for mobility and a reliance on cars in particular, makes staying in rural areas environmentally unsustainable. This issue was raised more explicitly by Bryn, who believed that “there is a limit to how green you can be, especially when you live in the countryside. Everyone’s in a car aren’t they?” (Bryn, 30s, small accessible village)²².

Evident within these narratives is a sense that rural dwellers, whilst privileged enough to live in the countryside, are at an inherent disadvantage, which begs the question; why remain?

It doesn’t make sense does it? It must be that people want or choose to stay here, and there are plenty of people who choose not to aren’t there? And that’s a pity.

(Dylan, 40s, remote hamlet) Evidently, how people relate to a place is particularly important. For example, notions of home, heritage and family featured strongly in discussions with participants like Dylan, who had been brought up in the area and had family living nearby. These notions were equally present in the narratives of incomers (both recent and long-established) who have familial connections to Wales that extend into the past (e.g. Michael), and in the case of some, project into the future (e.g. Ian & Grace). Consequently, this strong sense of attachment and belonging served to ‘root’ people in a place that necessitates a great deal of everyday (auto)mobility (Gustafson, 2001; 2006; Milbourne & Kitchen, 2014).

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2.1 Modal Choice: Locked-in?

Thus far I have demonstrated how meaningful attachments to place can influence more energy intensive travel practices, particularly for those who live in deep rural communities.

Almost every participant in the sample noted that they relied on personal motorised transport for most of their everyday journeys, which was particularly interesting given that each household was within a two-mile radius of the nearest bus stop or train station.

Despite being so close to sources of public transport however, only a handful of participants admitted to having ever used them. Rather than using public transport for their everyday mobilities however, these individuals used it for those infrequent, longer distance journeys to visit family and friends or for holidays. Why then, in the presence of alternative modes of transport, do most households rely on cars for their everyday journeys?

For most participants, their use of the car as the primary mode of transport was related to the perception that the quality and coverage of public transport services could not meet their daily needs, particularly when it came to commuting. A key part of this issue was the perception that bus and rail operators had failed to integrate their services effectively;

Trains and buses are never convenient. They run on the same timetables so they’re always running parallel to each other, rather than working together if you know what I mean -so if you can’t catch a train you can catch a bus or wait for half an hour for the next one- but usually there’s a two hour wait between a bus and a train [laughing] it’s just dumb!

(Megan, 30s, small accessible village)²³ According to Megan, the lack of integration between bus and rail services is the product of privatisation, as public transport is provided by commercial operators who compete for fares, resulting in a concentration of bus and rail services at peak hours “rather than trying to fill in the gaps”. Like many other Western European countries, the UK has introduced market elements into rural public transport systems in a bid to make them more commercially viable (Gray, Farrington & Kagermeier, 2008). With less than half of the operational costs being covered by ticket sales (Ibid.), these services are often state subsidized. Due to the heterogeneity of rural settlement patterns, which vary considerably

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between accessible rural towns and villages to deep rural hamlets and isolated dwellings, commercial operators are more likely to concentrate their services along main roads with higher population densities. By concentrating their services at peak times (both daily and seasonally), bus and rail operators service a greater number of passengers along these routes, which maximise tickets sold. Indeed, services were reported to be few and far between by households situated in smaller villages and hamlets, as exemplified by the following quote;

If I had to rely on a bus instead of a car, I’d find it difficult to reach clients outside the village because of the time limit you know -just because the service isn’t every ten minutes- it doesn’t work like in the city.

(Bryn, 30s, small accessible village) Once again the entanglement between spatial and temporal elements of place serve to reinforce energy intensive practices, as the speed, flexibility and convenience associated with the car makes it a more attractive mode of transportation. Indeed, several participants noted that using public transport to travel to work was particularly difficult given that the services that were available to them locally often were not direct services to their chosen destination. For them, a single journey could involve changing between several services, making what would otherwise be a straightforward journey into a convoluted and complicated chain by public transport.

If you don’t have a car, you have to go from A to B to C just to get to your destination.

(Ceris, 60s, small accessible village) One participant in particular, Jon, stated that he had once attempted to use public transport to get to Bangor, some 40 miles from his home, while his car was off the road.

In order to travel such a distance, Jon needed to make 3 connections per journey. Whilst the journey to Bangor had been relatively uneventful, the return journey was anything but;

The Llandudno to Bangor bus was ten minutes late, and by the time we got to Caernarfon I think it was running half an hour behind schedule. I lost the connection to Porthmadog -there’s a lack of information around Caernarfon bus station and on buses- but I did get a bus as far as Porthmadog but then I ended up having to hitch a lift to get back home.

(Jon, 50s, small accessible town)

According to Bruinsma, Rietveld & van Vuuren (1999) reliability is an important consideration in the choice of transport mode and route (p. 360). In Jon’s case, the negative experience of missing a critical connection had since made him wary of using public transport to get to Bangor again, as he feels that he needs to have “an assuredness that [he’s] going to make [his] connections”, which bus and rail operators cannot guarantee. Indeed, experiences like these serve to reinforce norms associated with habitual car use, as the car is perceived to be the only reliable and convenient option when it comes to meeting the transportation needs of households, and in some cases, of the wider family.

Other ways of getting around, such as cycling and walking, were similarly dismissed by participants, based on the distances between destinations as well as the limited infrastructure in place. For example, safety was a concern for Eluned (50s, small hamlet), as the narrow and winding roads in her area lack pavements, which make it dangerous for her to walk or cycle to the nearest shop some two to three miles away. For Bryn (30s, small accessible village) and Lowri (20s, isolated dwelling), the mountainous topography of the landscape rendered it difficult, even for those in peak physical condition, to viably cycle some of their short-to-medium distance journeys.

Evidently, time and space are inseparable when considering mobilities, as temporal constraints in relation to responsibilities within and beyond the home, coupled with distance between places, are key considerations when it comes to modal choice for participants.

2.2 Navigating Spatio-temporal Constraints

In considering everyday mobility practices, the data suggests that households manage the multiple and sometimes conflicting demands on their time by employing different strategies to limit the amount of journeys made on a daily or weekly basis. One such strategy was that of trip synchronisation and trip chaining in order to manage the temporal demands of home, work and family life. For example, Eluned (50s, small hamlet) noted that she would regularly “run a few errands”, such as the food shop, on her way home for work. Ffion (20s, small village) would routinely take her elderly grandmother shopping to a nearby town every Monday, and would simultaneously shop for her own household. In

a similar vein, Bryn (30s, small accessible village) synchronised the family food shop with his son’s football training;

The children often go to after school clubs and so on -not every night, but on Monday night I take our son to play football, so I have about three quarters of an hour to do the food shop, so it’s rush, rush, rush at the Co-op.

But it’s great ‘cause it’s so quick -just for the basics you know- run ‘round the shop –out- collect him- and then back home. Pffew! That’s how I like to shop! [laughs]

(Bryn, 30s, small accessible village) Virtual mobilities afforded by access to the Internet (Milbourne & Kitchen, 2014), also played a significant part in strategies to reduce corporeal mobility. Ten out of eleven participating households had access to the Internet, which was deemed to be a necessity in the countryside. For those who were self-employed or worked from home regularly, having access to the internet was integral to their jobs. For some, digital media such as Skype were important tools for work-related communication;

I had my first Skype meeting last Friday morning. I’ve done video conferencing before but not Skype. I know that the connection isn’t brilliant here, but it’s better than having to travel isn’t it?

(Dylan, 40s, remote hamlet) I haven’t had that many meetings over Skype [yet], but when I have its saved me two hours’ travelling, and like god knows how much diesel! (…) I think that’s great.

(Lowri, 20s, isolated dwelling) Digital social media such as Skype and Facebook were also used for a range of communicative purposes beyond the workplace. For instance, Megan and Alys noted that Facebook had become the primary communicative tool used by organisers of their children’s after-school clubs. Skype was used by Grace (40s, small accessible town) to keep in contact with her eldest daughter who had gone travelling, as well as relatives who lived abroad. Facebook was also important to young people within the sample, as distances between settlements meant that it was difficult to maintain face-to-face contact with their friends. As such, most participants felt that internet connectivity and its communicative benefits have become integral to youngsters’ social lives;

Cai If I want to go somewhere with a mate, I can’t just walk nextdoor

-Glesni I think that as soon as we had [internet] it became almost impossible