Council leaders call for local approach to recession
By Alice Cannet
A national approach to the recession will not help the countryside recover or improve rural areas job prospects, local council leaders said today.
The Local Government Association (LGA), which speaks for the 423 local authorities in England and Wales, insisted that councils should have more say in economic policies.
It found the number of people for each vacancy in rural areas has increased by almost four times in the last year prompted the comments.
Figures from job centres published today showed that for each job in urban areas, there are nine job seekers compared to only six in the countryside.
But in the countryside, the number of people for every job has risen at a quicker rate than in urban areas in the last year according to the research.
Jobseekers’ Allowance figures indicated that the number of claimants per vacancy in cities has risen 227 per cent from 2.8 in May 2008 to 9.2 in May 2009 while it rose 287 per cent in the countryside from 1.6 in May 2008 to 6.2 in May 2009.
Ms Eaton, chairman of the LGA, said: “It is deeply worrying for rural areas that the outlook for jobseekers in the countryside has deteriorated at a quicker rate than in the cities.
“The very special needs of the rural economy must not be overlooked as the recession continues to bite and unemployment continues to rise.
“Market towns and villages tend to be much more reliant on the family-run independent businesses that can at particular risk of going under during tough financial times.”
She said the closure of big chain shops such as Woolworths would have a bigger impact in the countryside where vacant shops are harder to fill.
The rural economy always faced specific problems such as shortage of affordable housing and troubles in farming industry but was now deeply affected by the recession,” Ms Eaton argued.
She continued: “The recession is affecting different parts of the country very differently and it is clear that a national, one size fits all approach to dealing with the recession simply isn’t going to work.
“The fastest way to move from recession to recovery is for more decisions about the economy to be taken at the local level, which means councils continuing to work with local people and businesses.”
At a Devon conference today, council leaders will urge the government to take rural areas’ special needs into account and stop “the countryside being left behind”.
They will also vow to make more efforts to assist businesses and individuals in the countryside to cope with the recession.
Today’s conference will be the first of a series of regional events to take steps to prepare for a future recovery together with the launch of a new publication ‘Global slowdown: local solutions II’.
LGA research also showed that 86 per cent of local councils had seen a rise in empty shops in the last six months with 64 per cent of them finding it had had “a significant or moderate impact on their town centre”.
