As the Goverment plans to cut public services, by reducing the expenditure on which they rely, I find there is a new and unexpected advantage of living in rural North Yorkshire. Relatively speaking, the last Government did not spend much here in the first place so, using the principle of half nowt is nowt, the impact of any cuts should be less significant than in other areas.For example, once you exclude the ring fenced money, which is mostly for schools, the Government picks up roughly two thirds of the cost of Policing and Council Services in Middlesbrough, but only one third of their costs in North Yorkshire.
As a result a 30 per cent cut in Government support, for police and council budgets, would translate into an overall 10 per cent cut here, whilst it would be 20 per cent in Middlesbrough.
Don't feel too guilty about this, as in North Yorkshire we benefit from neither the high levels of services nor the low levels of Council Tax that our urban neighbours enjoy.
