As a chairman of a small parish council (covering about 2000 acres and 350 people) in a rural but well located village in Cambridgeshire, right on the A1, I would like to comment on the rural issues pertaining to our situation.

It is far more expensive to live in a rural location than an urban one .

As 1st Transport is so costly, a car is a necessity as most of us have to work outside of our villages. In my case we have 4 cars standing on the drive at night as we all work in different directions. Public transport is non existent for most of the day. To get to the nearest city (Cambridge) would take 4 hours on 3 different buses and as the first one on a Saturday is at 8am by the time I got there I would have turn straight round and come back so that I was sure that I could get home. Public transport never seems to go where we want when we want it.

2nd. Fuel cost so much more. Most rural villages don’t have the option for mains gas, and where most have oil or tank gas, the price for that has gone through the roof over the last few years, far more than other fuels percentage wise.

3rd Car parking and associated costs at local railway stations are very excessive, for me to use the train everyday would cost around £30 per week just to park the car as I cant get there on a bus.

4th There are very few jobs in rural areas, so not only do we have to travel long distances, we have to spend time doing it, most rural workers spend more than 11hours a day away from home.

Then we get on to rural services.   Where once my village had a school, petrol station/garage, baker, butcher, post office and 2 pubs, they have all gone, the last pub closed in 2007. We now have nothing except the milkman that delivers to us from his depot 8 miles away, so hot milk in the summer and frozen milk in the winter.

Nearest doctor about 2 miles, nearest H.N.S dentist  3 miles, nearest hospital 8 miles( only there because we fought to save it), nearest small town 4 miles, nearest pub 2 miles, nearest railway station 4 miles, nearest school 4 miles...it goes on!

Yes we do have a village hall, but how long for I don’t know, as people don’t have time to socialise. We do have a playing field, which we had to fight for 10 years to get built, but we cant support even a football team.

Lastly, our village is right on the A1, we have to take our lives into our hand to get out of the village as the A1 is the only way out, and as we are the 1st village north of London on an unrestricted speed limit that has to cross in both directions, as you can imagine it is hell sometimes. We have to wait for a gap and accelerate madly to get to traffic speed as soon as possible. People that don’t know of the situation get very frustrated and angry because they don’t know why they have to slow down to allow us out. We have been fighting for a flyover for 10years, but it's still not in sight, as we don’t have a high enough death rate, although 3 people from her have been killed in the last 30years crossing this major road to my knowledge.

Thank you for your comments. These are the sorts of issues that our Chairman and Rural Advocate, Stuart Burgess, hears about during his visits to different parts of the country. His jobas Rural Advocate is to put the case for rural people at the highest levels of government, and to make sure that rural people's needs and circumstances are properly understood. As such, I have forwarded your comments to him and his team.

Best wishes, Laura Jacobs