Conservatives Announce Action for Wyre Forest’s Rural Communities

Mark Garnier, Wyre Forest's Conservative Parliamentary Spokesman, this week gave his strong backing to Conservative new rural policy proposals. With a significant proportion of Wyre Forest residents living in rural communities, these important proposals are designed to make a significant different to many local resident's lives.

The new policy paper, published last week as part of the Conservatives' Rural Action campaign, sets out a series of proposals to return power to rural communities, protect rural services and revive the rural economy.

The proposals include plans to:

• - Scrap limits on surplus places so that good schools in villages and small towns can thrive and new ones can open where parents, not Whitehall, want them.
• - Give councils new powers to give local business rate discounts so they can support local shops or put empty rural buildings back into use.
• - Support local Post Offices, giving them freedom to offer a wider range of business services and encourage local authorities to open 'council counters' in local branches.
• - Use unspent money from the TV digital switchover to give remote areas better broadband coverage.
• - Ensure fairer funding for Wyre Forest District Council and Worcestershire County Council, and devolve down funding and powers currently held by distant regional quangos.
• - Pilot the successful model of demand driven local transport, operating in rural areas of mainland Europe, recommended by the Commission for Integrated Transport.

Mark Garnier said of the proposals: "Rural Wyre Forest has suffered a decade of disrespect from an urban based Labour Government. Local services have been reduced or scrapped, post offices closed and rural poverty has increased.

"Rural communities face a great many hardships with reduced transport infrastructure, higher costs of living and fewer resources. Our rural communities need protecting and nurturing. That is why I am completely behind these Conservative proposals to help Wyre Forest's rural communities."