Diversity Review evaluation framework and toolkit (CRN90)

The Rural White Paper, Our countryside: the future (2000) committed Government to a review of the diversity of countryside visitors. The Countryside Agency commissioned scoping research (CRN 75 February 2004), which found a lack of evidence of the type, level and amount of countryside access by under represented groups, plus a lack of evidence of the benefits of countryside access. The review has addressed these evidence gaps with national research aimed at answering key questions about both visitor diversity and perceptions, plus provider awareness of the needs of under represented groups. Action research projects are testing ways of generating a sustained increase in visitor diversity.