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Exclusive: Rural life at ‘tipping point’ as cuts slash services
Lord Matthew Taylor - Chairman of the Rural Coalition
RURAL services in many parts of the country are at “tipping point” and only a “fundamental change” in the way they are delivered will save them, a new report warns.
Primary schools, libraries, health centres and bus routes will all face closure unless rural communities are empowered to work together with service providers and the Government to run them.
The study, by consultancy firm Rural Innovation, concludes that there is “no longer scope to continually pare down key public services” in the face of spending cuts and that the Big Society must be given an opportunity to take control.
But it warns that a shift in attitudes could take some time, with providers reluctant to risk handing over the running of vital services to volunteers. It also says a “one size fits all” approach is impossible given the diversity of rural communities.
It comes as the Yorkshire Post calls for the higher cost of delivering health and policing services in rural areas like North Yorkshire to be taken into account when public funds are distributed as part of our Give Us a Fair Deal campaign.
Rob Hindle, the author of the report, said rural services had been “doing more with less” for years but severe spending cuts have pushed many to the brink of extinction.
“The inescapable fact is that it is harder to deliver to dispersed populations and when you are pushing to meet delivery targets, the edges suffer quickest,” he said.
“We have seen this in the pattern of small school closures and redistributed bus services. Rural services have slowly been eroded away.
“But there are a wide variety of examples of rural communities looking after their services and this has been going on over the last two or three decades. There are the skills and there is the will to work with the state to deliver these rural services.
“We see the manifestation of the Big Society in rural areas where people respond to issues. When communities feel vulnerable, people should be prepared to step up.”
Rural groups welcomed the report, but warned urgent investment is needed to support communities who may want to take charge of their services.
• More details and background story in Saturday’s Yorkshire Post
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Comments
There are 6 comments to this article
Page 1 of 1
ChrisConder
Monday, October 10, 2011 at 09:24 AMOzTyke - £70k I believe. The digital switchover fund £530 million in the first phase was for rural areas. If you check you will find that most councils are handing this money over to the telcos to patch up their copper phone network in fairly urban areas and the real rural areas will be fobbed off with expensive subsidised satellite. This is what happens when government don't understand what they are dealing with. Big Society? This was their chance to really help rural areas, to regenerate them and to help many organisations, carers, health professionals, educators and businesses. They blew it. They profess to care, but then they don't walk the talk. If they want us all to step up and help they should walk with us.
OzTyke
Monday, October 10, 2011 at 02:26 AMNo wonder people shake their heads, I wonder how much "Rural Innovation" was paid to come up with what everyone knew already?
aryhian
Saturday, October 8, 2011 at 10:54 PMSo where are these volunteers coming from? Our retirement ages are going up to at least 67, the unemployed youth are going to be forced onto apprenticeship schemes paying £2.50 an hour, the disabled are going to be forced into work unless they literally have a leg dropping off, our childcare is the most expensive in Europe and couples are working every hour they can get to meet basic needs. Maybe in the minds of those Eton educated idiots at Westminster there is a fantasy world with cohorts of ladies who lunch, in the counties, to run these services. This is some 1950's fantasy reminiscent of their grandmothers era. Not to mention the fact that these services have core costs that need, yes you've got it money.
brianforbes
Saturday, October 8, 2011 at 12:52 PMI think it's time for the many advocates of the "Big Society" in the public sector to stand back and take a long hard look at what they are saying and where they think they are going. Yes, there are many who will volunteer, it's a basic human instinct in most people to help out when times are hard and we also accept that some people will and some won't. But to attempt to tap into the milk of human kindness as if the public are some sort of resource to be called upon, when highly paid public servants can't balance the books is taking things too far. Please remember we are paying customers and continued attempts to delegate responsibility for supplying public services will lead to more and more people refusing to pay council tax.
windtubine8
Saturday, October 8, 2011 at 11:40 AMThe rural communities in the east riding are dying from lack of any services,the only people who now live out here are the ones who travelout of the area to work and in most cases do little or nothing for where they live-we see them every morning in their chelsea tractors heading off to leeds etc, house prices have more than doubled since their arrival and they spend nothing in the local shops and pubs resulting in them shutting, after that the churches go and become posh houses for city dwellers, locals can no longer afford to live there so they move away leaving no community,gone are the days where we all knew each other,gone are the days of hearing a cheery good morning from your neighbours as you went to get the news paper,the chelsea tractor lot fly past and even if they are walking its with their heads down ignoring the locals,the farmers have suffered from lack of local labour so now a lot house immigrants on their land just to get crops in. The England i grew up in and was so proud of has gone-Big Society my arse!
Shirley Burnham
Saturday, October 8, 2011 at 07:19 AM"We see the manifestation of the Big Society in rural areas where people respond to issues. When communities feel vulnerable, people should be prepared to step up.” Oh, really ?? Another legitimate viewpoint could be that "when communities feel vulnerable" it is because a local authority has washed its hands of them, with the permission of central government. Neither the local authority nor central government has washed its hands of collecting their taxes, incidentally. Is that irrelevant to the case ? People of good will in rural areas will tell you that they are already being stretched to breaking point, filling in the gaps which have left vulnerable friends, relatives and strangers to cope alone without local authority support. Daily, more calls for more people to "step up" are made, with the inference that should they not, they are selfish idlers. Able-bodied people with time on their hands, and sufficient resources behind them to eschew paid work, cannot be in fifteen places at once : providing social care, volunteering in the hospital, funding and manning their community libraries and a host of other jobs, unpaid, now laid before them and described as a feast of opportunity provided by the "Big Society". It is outrageous, immoral and a nonsense.
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