National Council of Rural Advisers ‘A Rural Conversation: Together We Can, Together We Will’

There should be a requirement for each policy or piece of legislation to consider the particular implications of any policy for those living in rural areas.

This is a huge question and an answer needs appropriate research. More opportunities for home working, proper services for rural based businesses including broadband, Post Office and Banking service and grants to encourage businesses to locate in rural areas, public transport subsidies to reduce car use, are among the things that need to be considered.

Access to transport and employment opportunities and help for small businesses.

VIllages, such as Blackford in Perthshire, where I live, have a large number of community based organisations run by volunteers which support social cohesion.

Evidence from grants given to rural communities for development, such as eg Stanley Mills, will presumably give evidence of local support for cultural heritage.

It is unrealistic to expect rural communities to necessarily have the capacity to do all that is required themselves on a voluntary basis. With underfunding of local government, communities are expected to do more and more on a voluntary basis.

Community cohesion is probably the most important thing and is best served by voluntary effort. It is probably the most challenging. Voluntary effort in protection of heritage and tradition needs professional support.

Carbon reduction requires investment eg transport and broadband to change behaviour and shift people from dependence on car use. Green Tourism Business Scheme is a well designed challenge to tourism businesses, but exposes deficiencies in rural transport networks.

There is still a need to encourage investment in local sources of renewable energy.

Different types of businesses have different challenges and impacts

The range of policies supporting carbon reduction and increasing employment are key impacts which should be measured.

Not sure why skills needed in rural areas should be different to anywhere else. Perhaps the issue is that rural businesses such as tourism and agriculture, as well as services such as care, all depend on low paid work which is traditionally considered unskilled.

If such work continues to be low paid and possibly seasonal, then sector specific approaches make sense.

"Care at home"services struggle because of higher travel times and overheads and need a rural subsidy.

Tourism needs seasonal work. There will be a problem if Brexit goes ahead. The opportunity which the EU provides for people from EU countries to come to Scotland to look for work is useful to the rural economy, especially smaller businesses which cannot be expected to go direct to potential sources of labour mobility to look for workers.

Access to support for rural business development is crucial.

The new Fruit and Veg Strategy looks like a good way forward

Access to support for advice has additional costs in rural areas. Need for grants for individuals to access business support.

https://twitter.com/perthshirehour

Online at home. Saves time and travel

All the voluntary groups are quite busy.
Difficult to get office bearers for Community Council.
Too much currently expected of Community Councils who are all volunteers with cuts in local government spending.
Local Councillors are busy too, but do know what is needed locally.
Need for more resources at local government level to allow time of staff to give support locally according to locally identified need.
It is unrealistic to expect volunteers to do everything.

Public transport subsidies

Professional support through local authority which is easier to access. Due to pressure of time of local authority staff, it is difficult to get through on phone. Council staff are under pressure and threat of redundancy.

More funding within local authority to support things that should be done by the Council. eg road resurfacing , repairs to potholes, lack of suitable safe cycling routes for active travel to work.

Less expectation on the part of Scottish Government that things will be funded through voluntary effort in making funding applications. Responsibility for eg transport and travel, sustainable development and carbon reduction in rural areas should be responsibility of statutory bodies eg government and local government not volunteers.

Small business Bonus Scheme needs to continue.

Access for business development advice needs additional support in rural areas.

If small self-catering businesses are to continue, there should be no more additional bureaucratic requirements. please.

Need for a safe improved upgraded junction on the A9 to serve Blackford which is a unique small village with a major water bottling factory and a distillery, as well a new rail yard under development, no passenger station and no safe routes for walking or cycling out of the village to nearby Auchterarder and Gleneagles or the countryside .

This inhibits the development of other businesses, eg tourism businesses in the village.

There are lots of potential opportunities for tourist attractions which could be developed, but they need investment. It is unrealistic to expect private investment without infrastructure. Need for subsidy to encourage development and protection of heritage sites as tourist attractions, This cannot be done with voluntary effort, and most importantly cannot be done without a safer junction on the A9 as it would be irresponsible to encourage more traffic turning across dual carriageway.

No safe cycle route is available. In spite of Tactran and CCF funded report http://www.blackfordcommunitycouncil.org.uk/cycle-paths-report/ , no route identified. Landowner consent still being sought a year after research identified potential route using core paths.

There is currently too much emphasis on voluntary effort and community effort and finding funding sources to apply for to provide things that ought to be the responsibility of local government.

We elect three local Councillors who know our communities well. We pay Council Tax to employ well trained staff to deliver the services we need. These people are all under pressure from lack of sufficient resources to do their jobs and more is being expected of Community Councils and local voluntary groups.

There is a real risk that supposed attempts to encourage local democracy will force us back to the past, to the way things before properly resourced, democratically elected Councils brought an economy of scale, professionally trained staff and a serious minded approach to making sure that everyone has access to the same services.

This will happen if we cannot resource local government properly. Council staff are responsive, willing to engage and understand community needs but there are too few of them, and in some areas they are under threat of redundancy.