THE funding situation Somerset County Council (SCC) faces has brought into stark relief the urgent need for a fairer funding deal for rural counties like ours with a population spread over a large area where delivering services is much more costly than in urban areas.

For example, the average cost of getting a child to school in an urban area is £9 whereas in Somerset it is £120. In addition Somerset faces an escalating ageing population, with over-75s set to double in the next decade bringing growing demands on adult services and care budgets.

While Somerset has received from Government a 3.8 per cent increase in core spending (above the county average of 2.7 per cent); an additional £2bn for adult social care (drastically reducing bed blocking); £28m in infrastructure grants (much of which I helped bring to Taunton Deane); there is no doubt a great deal more needs to be done and I will continue to make the case to Government through the ongoing Fairer Funding Review and through inputting to the Care Green Paper on rural health issues.

I have made it clear to Secretary of State James Brokenshire that Somerset must be allowed to retain its Business Rates so that money raised here from hard-working businesses is spent here. And I’ve stressed to three separate DCLG Ministers that the SCC/ Taunton Deane Borough/ Sedgemoor District Council bid for £80m for essential infrastructure must come our way. I am also exploring other possible funding sources across other government departments.

SCC has to concentrate on its core responsibilities of adult social care, children’s services and learning disability (taking up 70 per cent of the budget). Paying £100,000 a day on the debt run up by a previous LibDem council doesn’t help but it is clear a re-think on how to deliver the services society wants and needs is essential. (And it needs setting in the context of the nation’s £1.7 trillion debt). I am pleased to have played my part in keeping the park and rides open locally – albeit temporarily – an example of how situations might be resolved, but much more needs to be done and I shall continue my fight.