The funding, to be introduced over the next three years, is designed to extend to 20,000 children in poorer rural areas the services already provided by Sure Start programmes. These include mobile playbuses also offering computer training for parents, mobile health clinics in areas without surgeries, transport to advice centres for health or financial issues, and access to childcare.
Announcing the package last week at a conference in London on child poverty organised by the National Children's Bureau, health minister Yvette Cooper said, 'Rural Sure Start is recognition that the countryside also suffers poverty and problems of access to services.'
Child Poverty Action Group director Martin Barnes welcomed the news but said, 'The problem of low income for rural families is compounded by a lack of transport, isolation and a decline in the availability of essential services.'
