7. The Changing Countryside

A comparison between 'then' and 'now' photographs of scenes within the Cotswolds AONB shows that, over the last century, significant changes have occurred in the landscape.

Roads - now busy with motorised traffic - have been surfaced, airfields have been constructed, food production has become more intensive, villages have expanded and become sub-urbanised, farm buildings have become larger and more industrialised (or been converted to dwellings) and thatched roofs have in many areas completely disappeared. Yet there is still the perception that 'the Cotswolds' appear now as they always have done and that, somehow, a now-vanished past lives on in the present. Earlier chapters have touched on aspects of why this is so; specifically how this apparent continuity stems in part from local distinctiveness in the built environment, and where this distinctiveness is threatened. This chapter looks at how change might affect the landscape of the AONB in the future, that is to say 'what if' certain trends continued or if major upheaval were to occur.