Councillor Roger Phillips was re-elected as Chair of the RSN at the recent AGM and he shares his thoughts on the year ahead with us below:

"I am delighted to once again be appointed as the Chair of the Rural Services Network representing such a wide range of organisations all focused on delivering services to their rural communities.

As we get to the AGM, its always a good time to reflect on the work that has been done this year on behalf of our membership, we’ve seen 547 delegates attend our comprehensive seminar programme and almost 500 attend our National Rural Conference, enabling a space for rural policy and the challenges facing rural service providers to be debated, good practice and expertise shared and ultimately improved knowledge and resilience throughout our rural sector.

Along with providing services to our membership, we have worked tirelessly on your behalf, ensuring that the rural message is heard, sitting on national groups and bodies to remind decision makers that rural areas need targeted action and policy to ensure that they are not left behind in the drive to level up areas of the UK.

We have made strong representations about the need for fair funding for rural areas, who are disadvantaged by a funding formula which doesn’t provide for the additional costs of delivering services in rural areas and which has been frozen in place for a number of years, leaving rural at a disadvantage.

However, we have a general election on the horizon, and with 40% of constituencies being rural, now is the time for our rural voice to be heard.  There is an opportunity for all of the political parties to understand the challenges that rural areas face, and for targeted solutions and policies to be put in place to ensure that our rural communities can reach their full potential.

You can read more at Winning the Rural Vote.

As the Chair of the Rural Services Network, I want to ensure that we are representing your organisation and their views, so if you’d like to get in touch or have any questions please contact me at admin@sparse.gov.uk."