Rural areas face ‘damaging’ fiscal devolution fall out

19 October 2026 by Kerry Lorimer

(Shutterstock)

The government has been warned that its plans for fiscal devolution risk widening the gap between urban and rural areas, with “very damaging” consequences for the most sparsely populated parts of England.

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Unless safeguards are built into the fiscal devolution roadmap, existing geographic inequalities will be “hard-wired” into regional funding arrangements, according to rural policy group

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