Rural Services

Services are the basis of any community, for example having access to shops, healthcare and activities. All create and enhance a feeling of belonging and a sustainable future for the area. However the number of services in rural communities has seen steady and significant decline and outlets remain at risk. Recognising this and the need to minimise journeys, ACRE and RCAN promotes activity that delivers and helps sustain services for rural areas including those developed by local communities.

Pub at Brockham with people in front on green ACRE and RCAN work across a wide range of topic areas including rural services.

Rural communities have experienced significant social change over the last couple of decades. Now in most cases, villages and small market towns no longer offer adequate services for local people to access, which forces people to travel out of their community for a range of essential services like doctor’s surgeries, schools and shops. This situation has arisen because of the inherent challenge of the additional cost of rural delivery.

Following the withdrawal of rural public transport, a journey, often lengthy, by car or taxi, is the only way of accessing these services that most people in urban areas take for granted.

ACRE Policy Position Paper: Rural Services

ACRE has complied a number of Policy Position Papers reflecting the issues of importance to rural communities and how our members in RCAN respond to them. The text below highlights part of ACRE's Rural Services Policy Position Paper

Rural communities should be empowered to influence and even deliver rural services so that rural people have access to a range of fundamental services tailored to their needs. Re-localising services means less travel, reduced costs to local people who are in most need of the services and, in the longer term, delivers the potential to generate more sustainable rural communities.

For more information, please contact Martin Hawkins, Rural Services Officer.

ACRE is working on Over the hill? a campaign led by Rural Media Company to raise awareness of the issues for older people in rural communities. It produced eight films showcasing rural good practice in delivery and a drama about a couple considering moving to the country and the challenges they find when viewing a home.