YP Letters: Rural communities feel austerity's impact too

YOUR correspondent, PA Sherwood, is correct about the hollowing out of NHS facilities in rural areas (The Yorkshire Post, January 20). The big urban centres of Bradford, Leeds and Hull have undoubtedly faced the biggest percentage cuts in funding by the Tories since 2010, but rural areas are suffering too.

When local bus services are cut, when ambulance services have to make savings, when smaller schools have to be closed, when the number of post offices has to be reduced, where will those cuts fall and do the greatest damage? The answer is obvious.

And when it comes to health services, will they cut the big general infirmaries? No, it will be the small cottage hospitals. Who suffers most 
from reduced ambulance provision? Why, it will be the same villages and small towns that have just lost their rural bus services, seen reduced ambulance and responder services that will be the first victims.

Some of us think the Government’s austerity economics are counter-productive. But the impact falls unevenly, and appears to be particularly injurious to precisely those rural communities that vote for the Government that hits them the hardest.