COUNTRYSIDE ALLIANCE

Countryside Alliance Chief Executive Alice Barnard writes: The Campaigns Team has come back from party conference season ready for the work ahead  (and you can view our conference photo galleries here). The team has maintained the momentum gained at the conferences by ensuring our campaigns are still high in the minds of parliamentarians, the public and the media. In the two weeks since Conservative conference in Manchester we have had a number of meetings in Parliament. This week we met Shadow Secretary of State for Defra, Mary Creagh MP, with whom we discussed the importance of rural broadband, affordable housing and repeal of the Hunting Act. We have also met a number of backbench Conservative MPs keen to engage with us on a broad range of issues including planning, HS2, outdoor education and country sports. 
We briefed parliamentarians ahead of several debates at Westminster including: our food labelling campaign which calls for country of origin labelling to be mandatory on all meat products; the importance of rural bus services where, during the debate, Brandon Lewis MP recognised the Countryside Alliance's work in highlighting how a lack of transport contributes to social exclusion in the countryside and finally, the negative impact High Speed 2 will have on the countryside while doing nothing to bridge the economic divide between north and south.
We also continue to generate great coverage in the media. The Countryside Alliance Foundation's campaign on outdoor education was a feature on Farming Today, which you can listen to here, I was widely quoted on a story regarding rents in rural areas -  and we have also been on several local radio stations promoting the Countryside Alliance Awards. Added to which fieldsports continue to be our heartland: our shooting Campaign Manager David Taylor has been on Sunday Morning Live to talk about firearms laws, the Tedworth Hunt was the focus of an article in The Observer, which you can read here and, with the start of the hunting season media interest ramping up I have already been interviewed by the BBC. 
It is vital for the Alliance that we maintain our impeccable rural credentials. We continue to be the leading voice of the countryside across a broad range of issues, which in turn brings us wide parliamentary support and enables us to achieve our key aims.