Bonuses come in many forms. Sometimes what is a bonus for some is not for others.

The prolonged spell of dry weather we have all enjoyed over the past few weeks has been a real benefit to anyone working outside. It has also usefully extended the holiday season.

Those tourist businesses trying to get over the problems of foot and mouth have been helped rather than hindered.

However, many shops are short of customers because they are still spending days away rather than in retail therapy.

Those motorists pouring out of the Lake District on Sunday evening, as I was, trying to merge with those leaving Blackpool, caused miles of queues on the M6 in Lancashire. Apparently this is a regular Sunday evening occurrence.

As a nation we rely increasingly on jobs in tourism and service industries. Manufacturing industries are either in decline at present, such as steel or farming, or they have already declined, such as large parts of the textile industry or coal mining.

There are jobs available in the service industries and sometimes they are available in large quantities. They are real jobs and in many cases provide genuine job satisfaction. However, too often the jobs are not skilled and involve poor working conditions.

Some jobs are only for part of the year. It is pretty difficult to get a job in the tourist areas in the off season. Not many of the part-year jobs are well paid enough to enable the holder to manage through the close season.

Such jobs certainly do not enable those who have them to get much of a foot on the housing ladder. Tourist areas, in the nature of things, are places where others want to live.

Those from outside the area, who happen to be well funded, are able to come and buy up such cheaper housing as is available. There are calls for such transactions to be banned. Trying to do so would be impractical.

Somehow the gap between what can be afforded and the price of houses must be bridged. Houses need to become cheaper relative to income. The supply of houses needs to be increased, which probably calls for a fundamental review of the planning system.

It would certainly see a significant increase in the amount of land released for building, and that seems a remote chance.

It is a problem that will have to be addressed sooner or later. Local people want to live where they have grown up.

The all-year-round businesses which do get started in rural areas need staff, and they need good reliable staff, which probably means staff who do not have to travel too far to work.

Shortage of labour is a real obstacle to expansion, or even to survival in some businesses.

Much emphasis is rightly placed on training by the Government. One suspects that at least some of the reason is that the unemployment figures are thereby massaged. Some good will, however, come out of the training initiatives.

All of it will come to nothing if structural problems prevent potential employers and potential employees from getting together.

Villages and country towns were places where people lived and worked. There was no need for local initiatives on employment or food, because that was how people lived. Pollution and traffic problems were fewer because the commuting journeys did not occur.

Those in power will have to tackle these issues.

It might be better if the media could help them concentrate their minds by talking about present issues, rather than by affairs of 14 or so years ago.

Updated: 10:30 Tuesday, October 01, 2002