RURAL businesses in North Yorkshire are being urged to take advantage of a support scheme.

Support From Assured Professionals (Sap) helps small and medium-sized companies (SME) in the county's most remote areas.

It provides access to the kind of legal advice usually enjoyed only by their larger urban contemporaries, at dramatically-reduced rates.

Sap project manager Karl Elliott said: "There are lifestyle benefits in being in a remote area, but there are drawbacks too. A common factor among SMEs is that they are too busy concentrating on key areas to keep up with new legislation.

"An additional problem which the businesses we are targeting face is that the appropriate corporate legal experience is far away and they do not always have the time to consider how to access it.

"Another hurdle is that our target businesses and corporate lawyers do not always speak the same language.

"There are prejudices and misconceptions on both sides. Legal jargon comes too easily for lawyers and businesses automatically assume they will quickly get lumbered with high fees."

The £300,000 programme is delivered by York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce.

To qualify, businesses must be in remote rural upland or coastal areas, demonstrate a productive capability, and trade beyond their local community.

Firms such as high street retailers and those in agriculture, construction, the motor industry and tourism do not qualify.