Rural councils demand action from John Healey in Budget after feeling 'neglect'
John Healey is set to announce his first Budget as Chancellor next week.
Rural economies could have been £19bn bigger if they had matched national growth, with poorer public transport and a lack of infrastructure holding them back, a new report has found.
Ahead of the Budget, the County Councils Network, which represents 39 local authorities including North Yorkshire and the East Riding, is missing a trick by neglecting country areas.
Instead, it says that successive administrations have focused investment on major towns and cities and is calling on Chancellor John Healey to make next week’s fiscal statement a turning point for rural areas.
The research, by the CCN and Grant Thornton UK, found that between 2013 and 2023 county and rural areas grew 2.5 percentage points below the national average, a shortfall of a whopping £19bn.
It said that infrastructure is lagging behind urban areas and impacting productivity.
Whilst there is 95 per cent 5G coverage in London, it averages as low as 24 per cent in county areas.
At the same time, countryside workers travelling by public transport take around 40 minutes on average to reach the nearest town or city, 70 per cent longer than the equivalent in cities.
In the Budget, the CCN is calling for areas to become established mayoral strategic authorities, which have the most powers like Greater Manchester and the West Midlands, within six months of a mayor taking office.
In Yorkshire, three combined authorities have established status, with York and North Yorkshire becoming the most recent one in July.
Hull and East Yorkshire, another largely rural area, does not yet have these additional powers.
Coun Mick Barton, devolution spokesperson for the CCN, said: “Next week’s Budget should be a turning point away from an approach from successive governments that have been wholly city focused.
“This report shows that England’s counties are not asking government to manufacture economic potential from scratch – what they need is the powers, investment and policy to maximise their potential.
“Ministers are missing a trick if they continue to design growth policy around a handful of cities.
“The prize for matching counties’ ambitions is enormous: a multi-billion pound boost to the national economy, through better infrastructure, employment and education for county residents, translating higher earnings into growth.”
This comes as The Yorkshire Post recently reported how urban councils are set to receive almost a third more funding per head than rural councils.
Under the current Fair Funding model, rural councils are projected to see their spending power increase by just 2 per cent by 2029-30, compared with 20 per cent for their city neighbours.
A government spokesperson said: “We are committed to improving services for people across the country, and those working in rural areas in England will see a total increase in their Core Spending Power of £958m – which is up 21.1 per cent from 2024/25 to 2028/29.
“We are targeting funding where it is needed most, with the most deprived rural areas receiving more on average compared to the least deprived and making sure the difference in cost of delivering services between rural and urban areas is taken into account.”