Shropshire Star comment: Money for rural areas not equal

But what’s this on our idyllic scene? It is people.

People who need jobs. People who need homes. People who want to be able to get about. People who need local services. People who want to be able to use their mobile phones and the internet.

According to a new report the “chocolate box” image of the countryside is taking away the Government’s focus on some of the real problems, such as poverty, poor infrastructure and housing.

According to Lord Cameron, who chairs the House of Lords committee on rural affairs, officialdom gives too much weight to things like agriculture and the environment, which means the other matters affecting country folk are often overlooked. The complaint our Westminster rulers do not really understand the countryside is a longstanding one, and that lack of understanding takes many forms.

There is institutional discrimination in favour of the larger urban areas.

In matters such as the mobile phone network, there is at least some logic in getting more bangs for your buck by giving priority to improvements, which make things better for the greatest number of people, but in other matters there is an underlying unfairness. Education is an example where Shropshire as a county always seems to be playing second fiddle in the funding stakes.

The two councils in the county do not feel they get a fair crack of the whip when it comes to Government cash as well. This is an agricultural county, and Salopians can be proud of their traditional and historical connection to the land, but it is also a relative term.

How many Salopians are actually farmers or work on farms?

Beyond the agricultural image is the world of ordinary people whose concerns and issues are much the same as those of people in any part of the UK. If you want to look for deprivation, there are parts of Shropshire in which you can find it without trouble.

If you want to look for care dilemmas, there are plenty of those too, perhaps even worse than elsewhere given the demographic of those parts of the county which are popular as places to retire to.

This report is a constructive nudge to encourage the Government to re-evaluate how it views the countryside. It is so easy to look at these parts with a green-tinted soft focus gaze which renders some important issues invisible.