Breadcrumbs
Commission for Rural Communities – tackling rural disadvantage 9 March 2005
Clear evidence of the complex distribution of disadvantage in rural areas is published today (9 March) at the launch of the Countryside Agency’s Commission for Rural Communities¹. The Commission starts work next month, in a shake-up of rural delivery arrangements following the Government’s recent Rural Strategy², with a clear remit "to make sure the rural voice is heard – and listened to – at all levels of policymaking."
Providing well-informed, independent advice to government and others, the Commission will help to ensure that policies and delivery reflect the needs of people living and working in rural England, with a particular focus on tackling disadvantage. It will have three key functions, as rural advocate, expert adviser and independent watchdog.
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Margaret Beckett, said: "The creation of the Commission for Rural Communities gives rural people – especially the disadvantaged – a strong voice to ensure that policies deliver for them, their communities and their businesses."
Dr Stuart Burgess, chairman of the Countryside Agency, said: "Tackling rural disadvantage is right at the top of the Commission’s agenda, but success depends upon sound evidence about the needs, and the policies and solutions that work.
"New research³ published today confirms that those who are living on low incomes in urban areas are clustered together, whereas they are mostly scattered across rural England. Helping these people access jobs, healthcare and other vital services poses a real challenge.
"The complexity of rural disadvantage can now be identified at a very local level, showing that in rural Suffolk, for example, there are small pockets or small areas of lower income households? living cheek by jowl with affluent households. This means that measuring disadvantage over too large an area overlooks these pockets and makes rural poverty difficult to address through area-based schemes.
"But even in rural areas it varies, with proportionally higher levels of economic disadvantage in some rural areas than others, so one approach does not fit all. For example, in England there are more people on low incomes in the south west, the north east, around the Wash, and in rural areas of South Yorkshire, Derbyshire and North Nottinghamshire.
"Today’s report gives a brief overview of the current evidence available, but it is clear there remain gaps and weaknesses in the evidence base. We need to know more and to bring in fresh ideas and thinking for the future. We are looking to others to help us and, before starting work on the Commission’s first major thematic study on rural disadvantage, we want to hear from policymakers and delivery bodies to make sure the study addresses the right issues and produces relevant outcomes," urged Dr Burgess.
To respond with your views, email disadvantagestudy@ruralcommunities.gov.ukor write to LynnWatkins, Commission for Rural Communities, The Countryside Agency, Dacre House, 19 Dacre St, London SW1H 0DH, by Wednesday 20 April 2005.
Rural Disadvantage: our first thematic study Ref CRC 03 can be downloaded from www.ruralcommunities.gov.uk/disadvantageor is available free from Countryside Agency Publications, PO Box 125, Wetherby, West Yorkshire LS23 7EP Tel: 0870 120 6466.
The Commission for Rural Communities is being established initially as a division of the Countryside Agency from 1 April 2005. A separate Landscape, Access and Recreation division will work closely with English Nature and the Rural Development Service, moving towards a new integrated agency to be formed following primary legislation¹. The Agency’s grant schemes are being transferred from 1 April to regional and local delivery bodies who will have prime responsibilities for socio-economic rural delivery in future.
Notes to editors: Key statistics about rural poverty and disadvantage attached.
For further information or interview please contact the Countryside Agency press office on 0207 340 2906 or 2907 (out of hours 07900 608 202). Or log on to: www.countryside.gov.uk
¹ The Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill, published on 10 February 2005 for pre-legislative scrutiny, sets out the provisions to formally establish a new Commission for Rural Communities as an authoritative new national rural adviser, advocate and independent watchdog, initially as a separate division within the legal framework of the Countryside Agency. The Agency’s grant schemes are being transferred to regional and local delivery bodies who will have prime responsibility for socio-economic rural delivery from April 2005; and following primary legislation, the Agency’s landscape, access and recreation division will be brought together with English Nature and the Rural Development Service into a new integrated agency. See www.defra.gov.uk/rural/ruraldelivery/bill
²The Government published its Rural Strategy 2004 last July. See www.defra.gov.uk/rural/strategy/default.htm
³ The Rural Evidence Research Centre (RERC) has been established at Birkbeck College to carry out evidence based work which will underpin the evaluation of existing policies and the development of new ones.
?Lowerincome households – average earnings £14,200-£21,600 per year. Areas of real affluence – average earnings £39,300 - £58,000 per year.
2005/11 ..mf
Key statistics about rural poverty and disadvantage:
- 23% of all rural households have a low income
- among low income households, rural areas have a high proportion (25% or some 600,000) aged more than 60
- some 700,000 rural children (23%) live in low income households
- in rural areas, low income households find it difficult to move up the income scale. 67% of such households in 1997 were still there two years later
- average weekly earnings in 2003 were £404 for jobs in remote rural areas, £453 for those in accessible rural areas and £473 in urban areas
- those who are income-disadvantaged mostly live in clusters in urban areas, whereas they are mostly scattered across rural areas
- new mapping of economic disadvantage (2005) emphasises local complexity,
- levels of economic disadvantage vary throughout rural England, with greater proportions in such areas as the south west, around the Wash, south Yorkshire, Derbyshire and the north east
- at the end of 2003, the median house price in accessible rural districts was around £160,000 – this means that 37% of rural residents (compared to 25% in urban areas) would have had to spend over half of their income on mortgage payments on an average home
- in 2002-03 almost 24,000 rural households were accepted as homeless and in priority need - up by a quarter over three years
- 15% of rural households do not own a car
- rural households spend, on average, £13.70 per week more on transport than urban households
- only 51% of people living in rural settlements live within walking distance of a bus stop with a regular daily service
Source: The Countryside Agency
"If you’ve no money and have to pay out a lot more for food, shopping and transport, then it’s a struggle. Living in the country is a great life if you have money but very hard if you haven’t." Vicky, single parent family, East Sussex.
"I used to think village life was the ideal – lots of community spirit and friends – and I suppose it is – until you fall off the edge." Karen, who suffers mental illness, South Oxfordshire.
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