Nidderdale: Government must show crucial support for struggling rural economy
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Ms Truss has placed economic growth at the heart of her new administration’s policy-making, pledging to rebuild the economy through tax cuts and reform.
However, concerns have been expressed that her predecessor Boris Johnson’s flagship policy of levelling up the nation’s economy and eradicating regional inequalities may no longer be at the centre of her own ideologies.
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Hide AdAnd local Lib Dems have further complained how the Government has long-ignored the needs of rural communities.
North Yorkshire County Council’s Conservative leader, Coun Carl Les, stressed that the rural economy needs to be placed at the centre of the Government’s policies to ensure that it can realise its full potential.
Research published earlier this year revealed that the countryside economy is lagging nearly a fifth behind the national average, and a £43 billion boost to the economy would be realised and thousands of jobs created if the gap was closed.
Coun Les said: “We need to ensure that the rural economy is taken as seriously as the economic input from large metropolitan areas, as it has just as much importance to the nation.
“The financial pressures which the country is facing are huge, and the effects of inflation and the cost of living crisis are being felt by millions of people.
“The levelling up agenda is aimed at tackling regional inequalities, but this is not simply about a North-South divide. There needs to be a concerted effort to ensure that there is parity and equality between urban and rural areas as well.
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Hide Ad“For North Yorkshire, the rural economy is instrumental in ensuring prosperity and greater job opportunities for the hundreds of thousands of people who live and work in the county.
“From innovation in the farming industry to the multi-billion pound visitor industry we have here in Yorkshire, we want to see the countryside placed equally at the forefront of the new Government’s policies.”
Lib Dem County Councillor for Pateley Bridge and Nidderdale, Dr Andrew Murday said the Government needed to do much more for rural areas.
"After 12 years of a tory-lead government, mismanaging the economy every step of the way, the rural economy has suffered at the expense of metropolitan areas," he said. "The latest mini-budget tells us everything we need to know about the tory party's economic priorities. Whatever Councillor Les says, there will not be any extra support for rural areas until here is a change of Government."
The study that was published in April by the All Party Parliamentary Group for Rural Business and the Rural Powerhouse (APPG) found a succession of issues were blighting the countryside and holding back its economic potential.