MPs urge action to tackle grim struggles that belie rural beauty

Skipton and Ripon MP Julian Smith said better transport services and improved communications links could make an enormous difference to people living in remote areas, as well as aiding rural businesses to help boost the incomes of the self-employed.

“Clearly areas such as North Yorkshire are perceived as being well-off and very beautiful, but beneath that there is certainly deprivation there,” he said.

“We have problems of homelessness and isolation, and it is a major issue in some areas.

“That’s why it’s important to campaign for better bus services, and rural broadband, and other services – often these people are suffering in silence because their voices simply cannot be heard.”

A report by Involve Yorkshire and Humber makes clear that the loss of key village institutions such as community pubs, local shops and post offices can be a hammer blow to vulnerable residents who suddenly find their links with the outside world cut off.

The charity states: “The lack of social occasions that are open to the public can mean individual residents find it hard to meet new people, and are subsequently left to cope with a difficult situation on their own. In many instances, the situation then worsens because of a lack of outside intervention.”

Voluntary sector groups say they want to pick up the slack, but are finding their funding streams are drying up at the very time they need them most.

With local authorities under unprecedented pressure to slash spending after seeing their own budgets reduced by 25 per cent, grants are inevitably disappearing up and down the region.

“Rural communities and voluntary groups have always had the passion and energy to find innovation solutions to their own resident’s problems,” said Leah Swan, chief officer of Rural Action Yorkshire.

“However, every community has finite resources, and support from the Government is vital if rural communities are to continue to dig deep to deliver the Big Society agenda.”

Conservative backbencher Graham Stuart, MP for Beverley and Holderness, is leading an all-party Parliamentary group which is lobbying for greater funding for rural areas. There are signs that the Government may be listening.

Last month, Environment Minister Richard Benyon revealed the coalition is reassessing the way it allocates funding to councils, and amid fears rural areas are not receiving their fair share.

It is hoped a form of “rural bonus” could be made available to local authorities which are trying to deliver services across wide and disparate communities.

Mr Benyon spoke at length this week during a debate on the support available to rural areas, in which he accepted there is a problem but insisted the Government is doing what it can to help.

He told MPs: “If someone who is elderly, sick, mentally ill, out of work or on a low income lives in a rural community, the problems imposed by rurality are increased by isolation. The Government’s policy must recognise that and ensure we are delivering services fairly and equally, so that the rurality in which those people live does not adversely discriminate against their circumstances.”

Mr Benyon stressed the importance of providing opportunities for rural businesses to grow to help lift people out of poverty, and of ensuring local facilities survive to keep communities going and vital support networks in place.

“We need to have a positive view of how the countryside can provide a driver for the economy of the country, and we need an uplifting view of the contribution that rural communities can play,” the Minister said.

“An idyllic, rural landscape is not just about the trees, the fields and the beauty that we see – it is about the noises of activity, business and life. It is also about children playing in a village schoolyard, a shop that is operating and, if we can roll out broadband, a creative industry operating out of a set of redundant farm buildings.”

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