A MULTI-million £s grant for Somerset from the Government’s Rural England Prosperity Fund has been welcomed by West Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger.

But Mr Liddell-Grainger, who will be the Conservative candidate at the next General Election for the new Tiverton and Minehead constituency covering much of the area around Wellington, said the grant should be viewed only as ‘a down-payment’.

The county will receive a £3.42 million share of £110 million allocated by Ministers to help level up businesses and community organisations in rural areas.

The fund was set up to create employment and kick-start business opportunities and also allows local authorities leeway to extend investment into farm diversification and new tourism initiatives.

Mr Liddell-Grainger said there could be few more deserving cases for help than Somerset, where so much of the economy was powered by agriculture and tourism, both sectors which had been under sustained economic pressure in the past few years.

He said: “I am grateful that the Government has recognised the need to help rural areas where economic activity has been so badly hit by the pandemic, the cost of living crisis, and specific factors such as the loss of direct farming support.

“On the other hand, there are chronic, long-term problems which will require far more than a one-off grant to fix.

“Rural Somerset is still poorly served by public transport, and at the very time when higher fuel prices are making life so difficult for car-owning families who need to drive even to pick up basics such as milk and bread.

“And thanks to the total shambles we have witnessed in the roll-out of high speed broadband and better mobile communications, hundreds of my constituents are still severely disadvantaged when it comes to internet access with many struggling with clunking download speeds which make working from home a near impossibility.

“As well as one-off cash incentives we must closely examine the wider economic model of rural areas to see where adjustments can be made to create more prosperity in the long term because I fear if we do not then there is going to be a massive exodus from the countryside of thousands of families who can no longer afford to live there.”