Introduction2 2 The analysis and evaluation of rural roads conservation campaign2 2. 1 Aims and objectives of this campaign3 2. 2 The approaches and the ‘position’ to campaign against clutter5 2. 3 The strategy6 2. 4 Identification of target markets and communication7 2. 5 The media8 2. 6 Organisational issues and management of processes and people10 2. 7 Finance and impacts10 3. Lessons could be learned by future environmental campaigns11 4. Conclusion11 Bibliography13 The analysis and evaluation of the effectiveness of environmental campaign- with a case study of rural roads conservation campaign of CPRE Introduction When concerning about environmental campaign, it is pressing for problems to be recognized, and try to urges government to make positive policy. However, by 1990s, the government was in full- tilt mode away from positive acting and started to focus on economy improvement, which is considered to be a hard situation for environmental campaigners.

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This paper sets out to analyse and evaluate the effectiveness of a rural road signs campaign of CPRE, by reviewing its general issues such as objective, strategy, communication and media, attempts to identify lessons which could be learned by future environmental campaigns. The analysis and evaluation of rural roads conservation campaign The environmental campaign of reducing ‘clutter’ in the form of unnecessary road sighs and advertising billboards in the countryside is conducted by the Campaign to Protect Rural England. It is believed that road signs have a useful purpose, which should be retained. However, increasing number of these signs could not enhance road safety actually. CPRE states that to campaign against clutter is not to campaign against roads safety, more useful design approaches would be taken into consideration.

According to the data from clutter audits, it shows that some of the signs are not required and could be removed, and only important signs would be survived. In addition, a latest research of psychological traffic calming found that the driver behaviour would be changed efficiently by creating attracting streetscape and landscape, rather than increasing clutter (CPRE website). 2. 1 Aims and objectives of this campaign When evaluating whether the object of a campaign is effective or not, Chris Rose thought that a good campaign objective often involves something happening or no longer happening.

For example: * A political agreement. Rose believes that the objective should not just be to get the agreement, rather than doing relevant act. It could be presented as a vote form, to get enough support before starting the campaign. * A corporate decision. This is to emphasis that the campaign should be made at the right part of the organization. * Public awareness. It requires the objective of a campaign to do a before and after survey, or any action from the research that could inform that people will take once they are aware, or kind of self- declaration by people who would become aware.

In this way, the people who do not awareness itself would be considered as the objective. * Stopping a process. It is believed that a negative can be transferred to a positive. Which could be photographed. * A solution. To make sure whether it could be inserted into the problem, or by direct substitution. These could be summarised into three dimensions (Figure 1): * Size- how much of the overall problem dose the objective represent? * Toughness- how hard it need to be tried to achieve? * Significance- what kind of consequence and effect would be resulted from achieving the objective (Chris Rose, 2005)?

Figure 1 Choosing the right objective in terms of hardness and size (Rose, 2005) When looking at the rural roads conservation campaign of CPRE, this campaign sets out to reduce accidents and protect and improve countryside landscape and townscape characteristics. It aims to reduce the sheer number of different signs along stretches of roads, and preserve their natural environment by designing the signs. The concept of shared space would be encouraged, rather than obvious segregation between motorists and walkers.

To analysis its effectiveness with respect to Rose’s assessment, one of the core factors is that this campaign is conducted by CPRE, which is considered to be one of the longest running environmental groups being founded in 1926. The CPRE was initially ‘metropolitan centred movement comprising a small but influential group of intellectuals, members of the artistic and library establishments and the landed aristocracy’ (Lowe et al, 1986), which has achieved many considerable influence over key governmental programmes in the fields of planning and agri- environmental policy (Adams and Watkins, 2002).

Due to the ‘partnership’ position of CPFR with the government, the effectiveness of this objective could be evaluated to be higher than many other outsider groups. It could draw attention to policymakers and give pressure efficiently, the ‘toughness’ and ‘significance’ are regarded to be easier to achieve compared to many other organizations and groups. Figure 2 A selection of useless and unnecessary road signs (the Telegraph website) Figure 3 The picture was taken on January 1, 2013 by Angela Shelton.

It was just needed for two days in September 2012, but still there four months later. 2. 2 The approaches and the ‘position’ to campaign against clutter One of the branches of CPRE, the CPRE Hampshire has been campaigning against clutter on rural roads since 2004. They have made some contributions and made out further approaches: * Carry out an initial survey of Parish Council with respect to the signs and clutters in their area. * Develop a ‘Principles of Signage in Rural Areas’ for communication with Hampshire County Council and local authorities. Cooperate with the Hampshire Council to enhance the awareness of employees, and help the clutter reduction plan to be part of future road planning. * Be an effective role in the A32 West Meon/ Wickham pilot project. * Provide inputs to the Hampshire County Council Environment Department and Hampshire Local transport plan (CPRE Hampshire website). Five key points have been identified by CPRE to urge authorities to remove useless clutter and improve rural landscape: * Develop a clutter reduction policy in the Local Transport Plan to ensure the protection and enhancement of rural landscape and local distinction. Cooperate with urban designers, landscape professionals, interested groups and the public, aims to carry out a traffic management manual as well as design guide. * Devise a local target to decrease clutter, and introduce the clutter audit to authorities. * Carry out a clutter free pilot scheme to improve countryside traffic during the first two years of the LTP * Write to authority commission to inform the issues which could help to promote through local media. 2. 3 The strategy According to Rose’s opinion of how to make campaign strategy, it could be summarized as: Identify the problem| Awareness|

Identify enemy| | Identify solution| Alignment | Supply engagement mechanism | Engagement| Call to action| Action | React and report| | It is argued that a campaign is not awareness- raising or education but a way of eliminating doubt and building up certainty to the point where people are motivated to act. The basic principles of a campaign could be seen to be the process, the methodology, necessary elements and reasons for success and failure (Frank Barrie Goldsmith and Andrew Warren, 1993).

With respect to the case of rural roads conservation campaign, CPRE firstly found out the problems that there are too much signs and advertisements along rural roads which would interrupt drivers and could not reduce accidents. Base on their surveys with people, large number of them thought the most negative factors disrupting their landscape was ‘the ugly pylons, masts and advertising boards’. Then they identified the ‘enemy’: our ‘green and pleasant land’ is disappearing due to overhead wires, phone masts, advertising boards, pylons and unnecessary road signs, which are considered have choked the landscape.

CPRE called for action at June 2010 to give pressure to local government, authorities and encouraged the responded companies to cooperate local communities to deal with this issue. And they insisted that it could help take a big step towards the Prime Minister David Cameron’s concept of a ‘big society’ (CPRE website). Moreover, CPRE would like councils to develop a clutter reduction policy in Local Transport Plans, encourage street scene audits and devise targets to remove useless signs.

As for ‘the react and report’, it is reported that at the beginning of 2013, thousands of road signs have been removed, and there have been 8000 repeater signs and 4000 poles removed in London alone (Transport network, 2013). To evaluate the effectiveness of the strategy with respect to Rose’s model, the campaign to against road clutter could be regarded as a good example in relation to other campaigns, as it has positive strategy and powerful influence, as well as good performance operating with other sectors.

However, it still needs further effort to gain good consequence in the long term. 2. 4 Identification of target markets and communication ‘Start from where your audience is’ is a well-known principle which could be applied in various fields. When it comes to environmental campaigns, this principle could be presented as doing market research (12 basic guidelines, campaignstrategy. org). In this case, if you need to persuade a group of people pay attention to the road clutter in countryside, who should be concerned more?

The policy makers or the road users? When starting campaign against the road signs, three groups of people are considered to be important. The first group is countryside residents. The senior planning campaigner of CPRE, Paul Miner, has done communication of large group of local residents who responded that the most elements to destroy their the beautiful landscape was the ugly pylons, masts and advertising boards. The idea of cleaning up this mess got the support very quickly.

Many villages are encouraged to involved in clutter surveys and find unnecessary signs surround them. This could be seen to be an effective and right way to achieve their objective. The second group is the government and authorities. They are considered to play an important role in a campaign because the campaign significance could not be realised without the approval from the government. The pressure and influence from the campaign organization is important as well. The last group is companies who created these clutter.

These include mobile phone network operators, Ofgem and Ofcom. It concerned that the prior target group should the countryside residents as they are the ‘victim’ of roads clutter. The campaign would be effective when all the groups work together well. 2. 5 The media Based on Rose’s opinion, although it is normal for campaigners and journalists to get a close relationship, too much news would not be considered to be a good thing. News report conflict cogent, however, it is not a very effective approach to help promote change.

It is indeed that almost every campaign requires substantial media work, the reasons have been summarized by Friends of the Earth (FoE): * Profile- to ensure that people know your existing, as well as your nature and main issues. * Specific publicity- it is concerned to be the fastest and most effective way to reach a broader audience. * Leverage- local authorities or industries might be change their ways of act if they know they become visible and being supervised. Rose also put forward 11 aspects about dealing with media:

Create your own events and public conservations to get the media report that| Create the reality, but do not let the media become the reality| News is not the only media| Magazine might be better remembered| News media requires both events and people | Create both of them| Local media are more believable rather than national one| The correction of local media is concered to be more important| Pay more attention of ‘time’| A good letter of your own event Is better than a tiny comment from an enemy| Identify timing and audience| They are the key to decide what to be covered| Invest in contracts| Know the journalists and do help|

Use news to change what has already been known, rather than explain something absently new| It is better to first introduce it by social mainstream| Discover the media your audience prefer| It might be more effective| Do not count publicity as success| Plan and try to influence| Do not spend time to argue with the media| Unless it can not be avoided| With respect to this rural roads conservation campaigns, there are media information on CPRE website, which presents the contact details of journalists and a range of news and information.

Besides, the information of spokespeople is available as well, which is effective to provide good channels to communicate with people who have stories and problems. They also have their own magazine which could be accessed through their website, various news and achievements in terms of road clutter campaign could be seen easily. In addition, one of the points that CPRE urges local authorities to help clean up clutters is that they should issue a news release to help publish in local media, which indicates that CPRE has noticed the better importance from local media.

It is indeed that the CPRE worked well with media tools. 2. 6 Organisational issues and management of processes and people Several groups of people are working together to deal with issues of road clutter. For example, the Somerset county council, together with the Somerset CPRE branch, has removed 1000 signs. There has an online system for residents to report the road signs they think are useless. The council then do surveys of them to see whether should remove or not. In Hampshire branch, CPRE worked with the highway authority and Hamilton- Bailie Associates on the A32 project.

There also has a steering group includes local CPRE activists, councillors, officers and the police. They have cooperated to remover hundreds of signs along a 12- mile stretch of the road. To support the clutter reduction, the Department of Transport published new guidance for authorities to help identify and removing unnecessary signs, minimise the environmental impact through careful design, and reduce expense by maintenance. It encourages further action among councils, a range of councils responded and reviewed their work, and reported their management. . 7 Finance and impacts Funding is considered to be an important element for a campaign to carry out their actions and get support. There are various ways that CPRE get their funding, for example, they raise money by selling tickets, and it is said that approx. 60000 pounds could be got one draw. When buying tickets you have to book at least one year then you could sell them to family and friends, many organizations would like to raise money through selling tickets to people who are willing to help, and it often works.

Also, the CPRE Hampshire branch develops a clutter reduction policy in the Local Transport Plan to preserve townscape and countryside features, a bid would be taken place for additional funding in the plan to help implement it. It is considered to be easier for CPRE to get money support than many other campaign organizations, because CPRE is the partnership organization with the government, which have impressive impact and position when help carry out policy and raise funding for voting. 3. Lessons could be learned by future environmental campaigns Avner De-shalit summarised ten points of how would results to the failing of a campaign.

It is indeed that the roads clutter reduction campaign of CPRE is successful in many aspects, when reviewing this case, there are some lessons could be applied to future campaigns, with reference to Avner’s recommendations. Do not need to declare that you are do nothing about political One of the main mistakes made by environmental campaigners is that they prefer to emphasis their campaign is non-political one, to get more support. But in fact people will choose to support a campaign depend on whether it is just or not, rather than whether it has relationship with political issues or not (Avner, 2010).

According to the case study, CPRE, the organization of this campaign, is the ‘insider group’ of the government, which has a close relationship with political parties. However, it is because this influence and power, CPRE could conduct a environmental campaign effectively, to fight for more benefits for local residents and local environment, and help make more reasonable policy. So it might be better if a campaign group do not emphasis they are not doing anything with politics. It would be seen as an effective campaign only if you do good things for its ‘victim’.

Do not focus on the promotion of organization itself Based on studies of organisation, many of them only remain active, but the function has been changed. There always have cases that organisation members so enjoy belonging to its group that he try to make it being the highest position for many activist. When looking at CPRE’s case, it is true that it try hard to make achievements with environmental conservation, and it indeed contributes a lot in countryside conservation campaigns. However, as its high position, it is difficult to balance the ‘national’ and ‘local’ (Philip Lowe and Jonathan Murdoch, 2003).

And it is not easy to show your stance to make each individual satisfied. Therefore, future campaigns have better pay more attention to issues of their own organizations. 4. Conclusion There are many factors could influence the effectiveness of a campaign, such as strategy, organization and media. The CPRE indeed achieves the valuable significance with respect to its road signs campaign, although there might still have some problems when dealing with the relationship between the local and national.

However, future environmental campaigns could learn a lot from this campaign, and it is believed that environmental campaign could show more influence by more effective strategy and the right ‘position’. Word count: 2636 words Bibliography Campaignstrategy. (2009). [online]. Last accessed 27 04 2013 at: www. campaignstrategy. org CHRISTOPHER, Hope (2013). Rip down pointless road signs, says Patrick McLoughlin. [online]. Last accessed 25 04 2013 at: http://www. telegraph. co. uk/news/politics/9775963/Rip-down-pointless-road-signs-says-Patrick-McLoughlin. html CPRE (2012).

Clearing Clutter. [online]. Last accessed 27 04 2013 at: http://www. cprehampshire. org. uk/roads/clutter. html CPRE (2012). A profusion of road signs in cluttering our countryside. [online]. Last accessed 28 04 2013 at: http://www. cpre. org. uk/what-we-do/transport/roads/in-depth/item/3165-a-profusion-of-road-signs-is-cluttering-our-countryside DE-SHALIT, Avner (2010). Ten Commandments of How To Fail in an Environmental Campaign.. LOWE, Philip and MURDOCH, Jonathan (2003). Mediating the National and Local in the Environmental Policy Process:a Case Study of The CPRE.

Environmental and Planning C, Vol 21, 761-778. NICK, Appleyard (2013). The last few years has seen local authorities remove traffic signs, signals and street furniture in an attempt to ‘declutter’ their towns and cities, with some developing completely new strategies. Nick Appleyard reports on progress across the UK. [online]. Last accessed 27 04 2013 at: http://www. transport-network. co. uk/Tackling-the-clutter/8501#. UYGbx7XvvN5 ROSE, Chris (2005). How to win campaigns-100 steps to success. Earthscan. WARREN, Ander and GOLDSMITH, Frank (1974). Conservation in practice. Wiley.

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