Were England’s rural communities a distinct region, their need for Levelling Up would be greater than that of any other part of the country, according to new research published today that finds the Government’s metrics do not properly account for the pressures facing our smaller towns and villages and as a result effectively side-line 12 million people.
The report, Rural as a region: the hidden challenge for Levelling Up, finds that the Government’s Levelling Up white paper metrics - used to identify the regions most in need of levelling up - are too urban-focused, and do not account for disadvantage in rural economies within regions, often linked to limited local employment prospects, poor transport networks and weak connectivity. It calls for the Government to rethink its choice of metrics and include more rural-relevant indicators such as work placed based incomes, fuel poverty levels, access to further education and house prices relative to local earnings.
The research, authored by economists from Pragmatix Advisory, sets out that despite being home to a fifth of the population and with a larger total population than London or the South East, when evaluating all the headline metrics in the white paper against the other nine geographies, England’s ‘hidden region’ has a greater need to be levelled up than any other part of the country.
The White Paper, published earlier this year, identified four high-level objectives and 12 missions to level up communities by 2030, setting out metrics to evaluate need and monitor progress. However, the report by Pragmatix Advisory for the Rural Services Network, which represents rural councils, warns that the metrics and measures are too focused on discrete regions, with limited reference to more spread-out rural communities. Metrics also do not account for key discrepancies such as frequency of public transport services to access key services, house price to local earnings ratio or percentage of premises with super-fast broadband.
More on:
Posted On: 21/06/2022