COUNTRYSIDE communities suffer from a ‘rural penalty’ that the government is not doing enough to address.

That was the conclusion of a report released this week, which found smaller communities suffer higher living costs, worse mobile and broadband signal and less funding for local services - which the government is “too slow” to fix.

Tim Farron, MP for South Lakes, said: “There’s an assumption in Whitehall that rural areas are well-to-do but you don’t have to spend much time living here to know that it’s just not true.

“We have residents living in poverty or working low-paid jobs and that needs to change.

“The broadband issue needs to be tackled immediately and much more affordable housing needs to be provided.

“I’m talking houses that are less than £100,000 - that are actually affordable for the average person.”

The report, from the cross-party commons environment, food and rural affairs committee, found the average rural house price is £30,000 higher than its urban equivalent, despite lower wages in the countryside.

It said funding for rural schools was, on average, less than half the level per pupil for urban areas in 2012 and 2013, with the report branding the lower level of state funding for rural areas "deeply unfair".

Broadband services in rural villages have "ridiculously slow speeds or no connection at all" and the Government's target to roll out superfast broadband to 90 per cent of rural areas looks set to be delivered late.

The report said: "Too often government policy has failed to take account of the challenges that exist in providing services to a rural population that is often sparsely distributed and lacks access to basic infrastructure.

"Rural communities pay higher council tax bills per dwelling, receive less government grant and have access to fewer public services than their urban counterparts.

"The Government needs to recognise that the current system of calculating the local government finance settlement is unfair to rural areas in comparison with their urban counterparts and take action to reduce the disparity.”

Hitting out at the findings, Rural Services Network chief executive, Graham Biggs, said: "The government is moving too slowly to relieve this problem - rural residents continue to pay more council tax for fewer services because of historic underfunding.”