‘Absolutely beautiful’ but no shops for miles: the Cotswolds’ rural food deserts

Deep-rooted problems of food inequality are hidden behind area’s affluence and beauty

What does a “food desert” look like? In the case of the modestly affluent Cotswolds village of Kempsford, very pretty. When I visit the sun is shining from cloudless blue skies on to lovely honey-coloured stone houses, some draped in purple wisteria.

Aside from the loud hum of US air force planes revving up at the nearby Fairford airbase it’s a picture of rural calm. There’s a primary school and a pub. A house on the main street is called “The Old Bakery”. But there is no shop selling food for miles.

There is no evidence people go hungry in Kempsford, but it illustrates the paradox of rural food deserts: food is often easier to access, cheaper, healthier and more abundant in the most deprived urban neighbourhoods than relatively affluent areas such as the Cotswolds.

For lower income families, especially if they don’t have a car, one of the biggest risk factors for food insecurity – inability to access nutritious food, skipping meals, and going hungry – is country living, a recent University of Sheffield study found.

The nearest food shops to Kempsford, according to Anton Wynn, the head of South Cotswolds food bank, are convenience stores in Fairford, more than 3 miles away. Driving takes a few minutes but there’s no direct public transport. You could walk to the tiny Fairford Co-op, but it’s a three-hour round trip along busy roads.

For value and choice the best bet is the big Aldi in Cirencester, a market town 10 miles away. The bus from Kempsford runs there once a day, three times a week but drops you a mile from the supermarket. You have less than three hours before the return bus leaves.

Taking a shopping list of basic food products, it turns out that if Kempsford is your starting point, almost everything on the list is radically cheaper at the store that’s furthest away and hardest and most expensive to get to if you don’t have a car.

At Aldi, for example, a packet of spaghetti costs 28p; at the Co-op it’s 90p. A bag of six apples at Aldi is 99p, and £2.50 at the Co-op. Rice is 52p (£2.45). A tin of tuna is 59p (£1.35). The bill comes £16.17 at Aldi, £26.81 at the Co-op. At a time when food prices have soared, this represents a rural premium of 65%.

Wynn says the deep-rooted problems of food inequality are hidden behind the area’s affluence and chocolate box beauty. The food bank now delivers 60-70% of its food parcels, after it realised most clients had no easy or affordable means of getting to its Cirencester centre to pick them up.

Bethany Groom, 24, has two young children and lives in Kemble, 6 miles from Cirencester. “It’s an absolutely beautiful village,” she says. The local store is great for food “top-ups”, she says, but expensive. Supermarket home deliveries are costly and a once a week food drop impractical when you are eking out a tight budget.

She doesn’t drive, and the logistics of food shopping, preschool care and NHS appointments are exhausting. Booking a return taxi to Aldi would eat up most of her weekly food budget. “I book the [dial-a-ride] bus two weeks in advance. My main focus is: can I get a bus? Then: how long have I got in town?”

The rise of the rural food desert – often, ironically, in areas where much of the UK’s food is produced – reflects profound social changes: the rise of the supermarket, mass closure of rural shops and post offices, car culture and the collapse of public transport, and changes in family structure.

Wynn recalls a Cotswolds village childhood in which his grandparents lived close by, grew fruit and vegetables and kept rabbits for eating. There was a local baker, a butcher and a grocer. Extended families and the local church were at the centre of a cohesive and supportive community. Much of this way of life has disappeared.

Food retail economics mean the free market is unlikely to provide a solution to food inequality in the Cotswolds. The food bank is supportive of the idea of mobile low-cost food clubs visiting outlying villages but the intractable problems of cost and geography – when, where and how often these pop-ups would appear – remain.

Cotswold district councillor Tristan Wilkinson says the rural-idyll-on-steroids image that has drawn celebrity and wealth to the area can make it hard to convince policymakers it has pressing social needs. He calls for an “infrastructure first” approach to new development, prioritising shops and transport as well as new housing.

It’s not just about access to food but a range of essential services, like job centres, childcare and health, he says. As fuel prices rocket, even the car-owning middle class is feeling the strain. At times, he says, it seems “we are being penalised for living in a rural community”.