Rural Businesses At Risk

In a survey of almost 500 FSB members whose businesses are based in rural areas, nearly 60% said they were expecting their Christmas trade to be down on this time last year. Confidence in the future is also at a low with more than eight in ten small businesses in rural areas saying they do not feel better placed to weather the downturn following November’s Pre-Budget Report.

“Rural businesses are as integral to the well-being of our economy as the turkey is to our festive dinner,” comments FSB national chairman, John Wright. “These figures show that small businesses in rural Britain are the silent victims of the credit crunch.

“The FSB believes that the rural economy needs urgent short term action to help it beat the squeeze along with a real commitment to deal with the long term problems that have plagued the rural economy for so long.”

The FSB highlighted a set of proposals to help rural businesses including free parking for all towns and villages during the Christmas shopping period; scrapping fuel duty rises planned for April 2009; ensuring a substantial proportion of the seven billion pounds made available by the Government for small firms is actively promoted to rural based companies; and a real commitment by the Government to deal with long-term problems such as lack of transport infrastructure and poor access to services.