RURAL areas face severe deficiencies in service delivery, experts have warned.

The Carnegie UK Trust issued the warning in its rural manifesto, launched by the charity on Tuesday (20 October).

The document draws upon evidence gathered by 44 organisations that rural community action is helping to improve people’s lives.

“Necessity is the mother of invention and in rural areas there are often severe deficiencies in service delivery,” it says.

Rural communities also had to contend with infrastructure weaknesses, policy gaps and the unintended consequences of existing policies.

But the experiences of pioneering rural communities in championing sustainable lifestyles could inspire neighbourhoods everywhere.

The manifesto acknowledges the accelerating pace of economic, environmental and social change.

But it suggests that dynamic, vibrant and sustainable communities can be created when local people and agencies collaborate to an agreed plan.

The full document can be downloaded by clicking here.

Carnegie rural director Kate Braithwaite said the report was relevant to all neighbourhoods, although it drew on innovative rural ideas.

“All communities are increasingly faced with radical change where there are no existing solutions,” she said.

“We need new structures and new thinking to achieve our vision for the future.”

Researchers found entrepreneurial organisations like development trusts are flourishing but said elected representatives had to collaborate more.

In times of austerity, application of locally raised finance needed to be allied with funding redistributed from large regeneration programmes, they added.

“In terms of infrastructure, distributed and localised solutions to rural affordable housing and transport are leading the way,” says the manifesto.

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