Have your say on our Rural Policy paper

It is my firm belief that local people know the area they live in best, village to village, town to town.

I have been asked to have a think about what policy changes should be made so that people in rural areas get a fairer deal and the resultant rural policy paper will be presented at Autumn Conference. Clearly, we must be realistic - none of us expects to have major services (such as hospitals) on our doorstep. However, it seems to me that there are some areas of Government policy which could reflect rural needs more effectively.

I chose to bring up my family in a rural area and so understand and appreciate the unique challenges that people living in the countryside face as a result of geography, sparsity and demography. Far too often, Government policy has been 'urban centric' in its focus and this must change. Rural residents on average pay 21% more in Council Tax, yet we receive far fewer services than our larger towns and cities. I was astounded to learn that, on average, urban councils receive 50% more funding per head of population than rural councils - £487 per head compared with £324.

I have included the following headings which I expect to form the 'backbone' of the paper;

We would however welcome any additional ideas for topics that you believe should be included, so please do get involved. Send any ideas you may have to the email addresses below with "rural policy paper" in the subject line or, alternatively, leave a comment on Liberal Democrat Voice.

Webmasters comments

• Rural Services - Faster Broadband so that I can edit the website faster
• For those of us who can not use buses give us the option to replace our travel pass with the DVLA licence

Please forward your comment to:

• info@eastmidslibdems.org.uk
• tom.ryder@parliament.uk
• policy.officer@eastmidslibdems.org.uk