Why pensioners are hit hardest by rural poverty
From the comments: “We should encourage people to move to smaller, warmer, properties in the cities, rather than pleading for more subsidies for those who (in the main) choose to live in remote places (“we like the countryside”) but then complain about lack of facilities. If you want better facilities (more shops) in remote villages, you need to build more properties so that more people live and work in those villages, creating a market for retail businesses (we call them ‘towns’). You also need to build bigger, faster roads so that delivery lorries can get to these places quicker. You can’t have it both ways – either you have rustic beauty (with poor roads, no buses and vacant pubs) or urban efficiency (with plenty of parks and gardens and all the shops in walking distance).