{"id":64941,"date":"2024-12-09T10:43:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-09T10:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/?p=64941"},"modified":"2024-12-09T10:43:02","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T10:43:02","slug":"devon-county-council-is-to-launch-an-all-party-protest-to-the-government-about-cuts-in-funding-for-rural-communities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/devon-county-council-is-to-launch-an-all-party-protest-to-the-government-about-cuts-in-funding-for-rural-communities\/","title":{"rendered":"Devon County Council is to launch an all-party protest to the Government about cuts in funding for rural communities."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Government has announced it plans to \u201cre-purpose\u201d the Rural Services Delivery Grant to target funds to deprived areas.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Devon received \u00a310.1 million from the grant this year \u2013 the highest in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the county council has agreed unanimously to protest to the Government and enlist the backing of the county\u2019s MPs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our Conservative leader, James McInnes, made an emergency announcement to councillors at last Thursday’s Full Council meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He urged the Government to provide more cash in Devon’s overall grant settlement due later this month to mitigate the \u00a310 million loss.<\/p>\n\n\n

\r\n\t
\r\n

He said:\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\r\n \t\t

\u201cThe Rural Services Delivery Grant is meant to support councils like Devon in helping with the increased cost of providing services in a sparsely-populated county.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example our bill for getting children to school is one of the highest in the country \u2013 particularly in the secondary sector where students can live miles away from their nearest college.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt costs more to provide social care for our elderly and vulnerable residents because of the increased costs of carers getting from one rural village to the next rather than looking after people who live in the same street or neighbourhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we have one of the biggest road networks in the country to maintain and repair.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis all smacks of a Government whose MPs mostly represent urban areas and don\u2019t have a clue about life in rural communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it also fails to recognise that there is real deprivation in Devon with some communities having some of the lowest wages in the country but that isn\u2019t so obvious in sparsely-populated areas as it is in concentrated urban neighbourhoods.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis announcement has come so late into our budget-setting arrangements that we will now have to cut \u00a310 million from our operating costs and from the money we were expecting to spend next year on providing care, support and services for our young, elderly and vulnerable residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd last minute savings like this are never an efficient, effective or economic way of spending the money we raise from our council taxpayers instead of prudent planning.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\r\n\t<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\t
\r\n\t\t\"placeholder\r\n
\r\n Councillor James McInnes, Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Policy, Corporate and Asset Management<\/a><\/figcaption>\r\n <\/figure>\r\n <\/div>\r\n \r\n <\/div>\n\n
\r\n\t
\r\n

Liberal Democrat leader Caroline Leaver said:<\/p><\/div>\r\n \t\t

\u201cI am happy to join with the other parties. I share the concerns about the lateness of the announcement.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\r\n\t<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\t
\r\n\t\t\"Councillor\r\n
\r\n Councillor Caroline Leaver, Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group<\/a><\/figcaption>\r\n <\/figure>\r\n <\/div>\r\n \r\n <\/div>\n\n\n

She said despite the image of Devon as being full of chocolate box cottages, there was considerable and pervasive deprivation in parts of some wards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Labour leader Carol Whitton said she would encourage all councillors to enlist the help of their MPs to find out exactly what the proposals meant.<\/p>\n\n\n

\r\n\t
\r\n

Independent group leader Frank Biederman said:<\/p><\/div>\r\n \t\t

\u201cIt’s really disappointing and I will be happy to sign a letter to the Government.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\r\n\t<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\t
\r\n\t\t\"Councillor\r\n
\r\n Councillor Frank Biederman, Leader of Independent Group<\/a><\/figcaption>\r\n <\/figure>\r\n <\/div>\r\n \r\n <\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":61267,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"acf":[],"featured_image":{"ID":61267,"title":"county hall","alt":"County Hall, Exeter","description":"","caption":"","url":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2023\/09\/county-hall-news-page.jpg","width":1200,"height":675,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2023\/09\/county-hall-news-page-400x270.jpg","thumbnail_width":400,"thumbnail_height":270,"medium":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2023\/09\/county-hall-news-page-600x338.jpg","medium_width":600,"medium_height":338,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2023\/09\/county-hall-news-page-768x432.jpg","medium_large_width":768,"medium_large_height":432,"large":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2023\/09\/county-hall-news-page-800x450.jpg","large_width":800,"large_height":450,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2023\/09\/county-hall-news-page.jpg","1536x1536_width":1200,"1536x1536_height":675,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2023\/09\/county-hall-news-page.jpg","2048x2048_width":1200,"2048x2048_height":675,"thumbnail_featured":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2023\/09\/county-hall-news-page-770x450.jpg","thumbnail_featured_width":770,"thumbnail_featured_height":450,"thumbnail_sidebar":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2023\/09\/county-hall-news-page-200x135.jpg","thumbnail_sidebar_width":200,"thumbnail_sidebar_height":135,"banner-block":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2023\/09\/county-hall-news-page.jpg","banner-block_width":440,"banner-block_height":248,"small-banner":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2023\/09\/county-hall-news-page.jpg","small-banner_width":640,"small-banner_height":360,"medium-banner":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2023\/09\/county-hall-news-page.jpg","medium-banner_width":1024,"medium-banner_height":576,"small-thumb":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2023\/09\/county-hall-news-page.jpg","small-thumb_width":640,"small-thumb_height":360,"medium-thumb":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2023\/09\/county-hall-news-page.jpg","medium-thumb_width":320,"medium-thumb_height":180,"large-thumb":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2023\/09\/county-hall-news-page.jpg","large-thumb_width":420,"large-thumb_height":236,"slideshow-preview":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2023\/09\/county-hall-news-page.jpg","slideshow-preview_width":300,"slideshow-preview_height":169,"slideshow":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2023\/09\/county-hall-news-page.jpg","slideshow_width":800,"slideshow_height":450}},"category_priority":false,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":true,"date":"2026-12-09 09:43:33","action":"delete","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64941"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64943,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64941\/revisions\/64943"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}