POCKETS of rural poverty across the district are just as bad as any inner city deprivation, claim the Country Landowners Association (CLA)

In the week that Lancaster MP Hilton Dawson addressed the concerns of 140 women agricultural workers, the CLA said rural poverty often went unnoticed.

They claim indicators to measure wealth inequality often overlooked the specific problems of rural areas and that one study of households in the countryside revealed that 44 per cent survived on an income of just £8,000 or less.

Regional Director for the CLA, Jolyon Dodgson, said: "The elderly are by far the group most vulnerable to experiencing poverty in rural areas and the shortage of affordable housing also causes problems, denying people on low or even modest incomes the opportunity to live or remain in the countryside. He added: "To tackle rural poverty all aspects of life which have an impact on it must be dealt with - from transport to education, services and housing. We need to see an increase in opportunities for those living in the countryside and an awareness that these people are as much entitled to jobs with decent salaries as those in towns and cities."

This week Hilton Dawson explained that "women are key to the new future of farming."

Speaking after a dinner with a women farmers organisation, he said: "Agriculture is a community in crisis. Nevertheless, there are real opportunities to create a new future in farming if the messages of the Government's rural development plan are heeded and all avenues explored. This will require people in the industry to be tough, creative, flexible, co-operative and imaginative. Women have a major role in all this. They are the key to the new future of farming."