THE government has invited the council serving England's most rural county to provide evidence of the increased costs and the difficulties of providing public services to people in sparsely populated areas.

MPs and councillors in North Yorkshire have welcomed the joint Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs investigation, saying ministers have failed to understand the financial pressures facing councils serving rural areas.

They say the study will provide them with a window to show how the current system of calculating the local government finance settlement is unfair to rural areas in comparison with their urban counterparts.

A House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report published last year concluded rural communities pay higher council tax bills per dwelling, receive less government grant and have access to fewer public services than their urban counterparts.

Its chair, Thirsk and Malton MP Anne McIntosh, who campaigned to lower fuel duty because of the impact on delivering public services in rural areas, welcomed the inquiry, saying government funding of rural areas discriminated against the residents.

In areas such as Richmondshire, councils face high fuel bills to provide services such as refuse collection as its six miles-a-gallon lorries complete a 56-mile round trip to Hawes, alongside the additional staff travel time and upkeep for the vehicles.

While providing social care in rural areas means paying for staff to travel to isolated areas, the county also has one of the highest bills in the country for home to school transport, which costs some £22m a year, and maintains the longest road network in the country.

County councillor Carl Les said the county missed out economies of scale available to authorities with concentrated centres of population, while the distances involved presented financial challenges in themselves.

He said: “We hope very much that this inquiry will translate into tangible financial assistance to help the council to continue to deliver excellent services to its communities.”

The council has suggested the inquiry also examines areas such as health, which campaigners, including Richmond MP William Hague, have long claimed is under-funded in the county due to the costs of rural provision.

Upper Dales councillor John Blackie said: "Looking at the issues in this investigation in isolation is insufficient, no study of rural costs will be complete without examining healthcare."

Ripon and Skipton MP Julian Smith added: "It is encouraging the council will be able to input into this inquiry and provide detailed information about the challenges of operating in the most rural county in England."