Plans to help level up the countryside have been ignored in the
Chancellor of the Exchequer’s spending plans.
In the Budget announced by in the House of Commons, there
is a lack of detail on how the government aims to help unleash
the potential of the rural economy – a missed opportunity for the
countryside.
Victoria Vyvyan, Vice President of the Country Land &
Business Association (CLA) which represents 28,000 rural
businesses, farmers and land managers across England and Wales,
said:
“Today’s Budget shows government has no plan to create prosperity
in rural areas. All too often, when government talks about
the countryside they do so in the context of keeping it the
same. But there is no ambition to show what the countryside
could be – a vibrant part of the economy that creates jobs and
encourages entrepreneurship, all the while building strong
communities in which people can afford to live.
“The rural economy is 18% less productive than the national
average, largely due to poor infrastructure, poor skills
provision and an outdated planning regime. As a result,
underemployment and deprivation take root. However, if government
brought its ‘levelling up’ agenda to the countryside and focused
on reducing the productivity gap, up to £43bn could be added to
the economy with the creation of hundreds of thousands of good
jobs. Today was a missed opportunity.
“The announcement to build more homes on brownfield sites might
make sense, but given less than 10% of available sites are in
rural areas it will do nothing to ease the rural housing
crisis. Nobody wants to concrete over the countryside,
least of all us, but instead of treating rural communities as
museums government should support small scale developments –
adding small numbers of homes to a large number of villages,
helping to provide good housing for local people while also
boosting the local economy.”
