POOR services and a rise in rural poverty is failing to deter an increase in the number of people moving from towns into the Yorkshire countryside and coastal areas.
And retired people, once the biggest group to seek the rural idyll, are being outnumbered by families.
This is one of the pictures to emerge from the State of the Countryside 2008 report, published by the Commission for Rural Communities, the ten
th annual analysis of life for those living and working in the English countryside.
It reveals that wages in some sections of rural Yorkshire continue to be low, and for many work is not a secure route out of poverty.
Its findings show that in some rural parts of the region there are higher than average numbers of people who have less than 60% of the estimated average weekly disposable income while levels of deprivation in some areas are also well above the national average.
Dr Stuart Burgess, chairman of the CRC said: “Around one in five rural households now live below the poverty line and between 2004/05 and 2006/07 poverty in rural households increased faster than in urban areas.
“This year we have been able to use the official Households Below Average Income data for rural areas to show this increase.”
And in the wake of further fuel hike forecasts, State of the Countryside reveals some of the country’s highest levels of fuel poverty are affecting parts of rural Yorkshire and the Humber.
The report also highlights a lack of affordable housing, declining services in rural areas and poorer accessibility to services for people without cars.
