In 2004 Trevor Phillips, Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, asked if the countryside is guilty of a 'passive apartheid'.

White Open Spaces is a Pentabus Theatre development project undertaken in partnership with BBC Radio Drama. Nine Writers were invited to take part in a residential week in Shropshire.

The plays published in this volume are by Francesca Beard, Sonali Bhattacharyya, Ian Marchant, Kara Miller, Courttia Newland, Richard Rai O'Neil, and Rommi Smith.

White Open Spaces was taken on a regional tour, including a run at the Pleasance's King Dome at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2006.