Easter the perfect time to sow seeds of a countryside revival

FEWER than 10 per cent of children play in wild places. Three times as many youngsters are taken to hospital each year after falling out of bed, as from falling out of trees. A 2008 study showed that 20 per cent had been banned from playing conkers.

These were the unsettling figures announced by the National Trust last week as it began an inquiry to 'Save children's relationship with the outdoors'. What the Trust was looking for was practical action to reconnect children with the natural world and inspire them to get outdoors.

That meant building a den, picking flowers and climbing trees.

As the Easter holidays begin – and the rains inevitably return – this inquiry is asking exactly the right question. A generation of 'cotton wool kids' are missing out on the fun, skills and maturity that can come with decent experience of the outdoors.

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What is more, the National Trust is doing what it was set up for: helping to bring the beauty and benefits of the countryside to those who cannot usually access it.

In this year of remarkable anniversaries – Pugin, Dickens, the Titanic – a little less well-known landmark is the 100th anniversary of the death of Octavia Hill. Together with Hardwicke Rawnsley and Robert Hunter, of the Commons Preservation Society, Hill was one of the founders of the National Trust. Along with the likes of Florence Nightingale, Emmeline Pankhurst and Queen Victoria herself, Hill was part of that generation of remarkable 19th century women determined to make Britain a better place.

For Hill, it came down to the question of housing. She began her career among the tenements of inner-city Victorian London with a plan known as five per cent philanthropy: that the wealthy who invested in her housing projects would see a five per cent return on their capital. This meant her poor tenants always had to pay their way. There was to be no indiscriminate charity on her estates. No rights without responsibilities.

Just as governments today seek to involve voluntary societies in tackling worklessness, so Hill's team of housing managers (or 'visitors') sought to transform the habits of the poor through personal contact. And Hill was adamant that such work demanded a feminine perspective. "Ladies must do it, for it is detailed work; ladies must do it, for it is household work; it needs, moreover, persistent patience, gentleness, hope," she said.

Yet Octavia Hill always closely connected cultural philanthropy to social reform. It wasn't enough to collect the rent and fix the gutters. On her housing estates, there was art, culture, and theatre. Indeed, she even thought a bit of military training would not go amiss and in the 1880s began a network of cadets.

It was from her time in the bleak, treeless housing estates that Hill also became convinced of the need for open spaces for the urban masses, "a few acres where the hilltop enables the Londoner to rise above the smoke, to feel a refreshing air for a little time and to see the sun setting in coloured glory which abounds so in the earth God made".

And so the National Trust emerged from her fundamental conviction that the poor deserved equal cultural and aesthetic opportunities as the rich, but that people had also to put the effort in.

In the succeeding decades, the National Trust often seemed to have lost sight of this pioneering, democratic vision as it became too closely associated with country houses and looking after the interests of landowners. Today, it is at last returning to its radical roots – and that is to be welcomed.

Of course, in Stoke-on-Trent, one of our great strengths is easy access to the countryside: the beauty of the National Trust's Biddulph Grange; the dramatic scenery of the Roaches; the lakeland beauty of Rudyard. But, sadly, far too few of our young people get to enjoy it. Perhaps for economic reasons, but also for cultural: it doesn't seem an option for them. If the National Trust is serious about ending our cotton-wool culture, then it needs to put some funds behind its philosophy and set up an 'Octavia Hill Endowment' to get some kids into the countryside.

But there is something else we could do in Stoke-on-Trent – re-introduce the countryside back into the city. In Hanley, Matthew Rice has already made a start by sowing wild-flower seeds into the deserted lots of the canal quarter. Why not on other parts of the city opened up by the Housing Renewal scheme? This Easter season of renewal, let us think of new ways to encourage our young people to enjoy the wonders of nature.