Last night Neil Parish presented the Rural Fair Share Petition signed by residents of Tiverton and Honiton.

The Rural Fair Share campaign is calling on the Government to address the ongoing disparity in funding between rural and urban areas.

The Petition is asking the Government to reduce the Rural Penalty – which sees urban areas receive 50% more support per head than rural areas – by at least 10% by 2020.

Neil Parish said: “Overall residents in rural areas like Devon earn less, on average, than those in cities, pay council tax which is £76 more per person but see urban areas receive Government grants worth 50% more per head than those in the countryside.

“Devon is the fifth “oldest” county in England with an average age of 45 and a growing number of the 75 and older age group. This means accelerating demand for health and social care in the future – something the funding settlement does not account for.

“Delivering services in sparsely populated rural areas also tends to be more expensive, which can add to the burden. Devon also has the largest single road network in England at nearly 8,000 miles making incredible hard to maintain.

“The Government is proposing to freeze this position until 2020. Freezing the system is indefensible, locking-in past unfairness and stopping changes the Government has itself agreed from actually being implemented.

”It is simply not enough for the Government to be sympathetic to rural life; it must act to change a system which is biased and unfair.”

Earlier on the 10th October 2013 Neil Parish lead a backbench business debate in the House of Commons on fairer funding for rural Local Authorities and called on the Minister for Local Government to consider the high cost of delivering public services in rural areas.