RESILIENCE and resourcefulness are characteristics synonymous with Yorkshire country folk.

Along with stubbornness and thriftiness, they epitomise what is needed to live and thrive in a landscape that can be as isolating as it is beautiful.

The Upper Dales Community Partnership is the collective embodiment of all that is positive about the close-knit communities that form across the most rural areas of the county.

That willingness to get stuck in rather that wait for someone else - the government, the council, a philanthropist and so on - to step in and prevent vital services from being lost forever.

Not content with co-ordinating a bus service that serves as a lifeline to many residents, the Partnership has now stepped in to secure the short-term future of the very fuel that runs the bus.

It is a remarkable move for a group that over the last two decades has done its very best to keep Upper Dales communities connected and thriving in the face of dwindling services.

The Partnership is an admirable organisation that will surely be adopted by rural communities around the country as it is a sad fact that geographically-isolated communities feel the bite more than most when roads, schools, NHS and council budgets are slashed.

The group is truly showing the way for countryside residents across the land to take back control and work together to keep their vital services.

Others will surely follow and existing groups will hopefully flourish, but they will have to do it without the Dales’ Partnership’s ingrained Yorkshire grit and determination.