GOVERNMENT officials have no idea of the crisis facing the countryside, a former GP has warned.

Brenda Thiede, of West Scrafton, near Leyburn, said her experience on a number of bodies in North Yorkshire led her to conclude that central government had little idea of rural issues.

She said that rural organisations had difficulty getting grants because they were seen as insufficiently deprived. As chairman of North Yorkshire Early Years and Child Development Partnership, she said she had learned about the difficulties of impressing on central government the particular problems of rural isolation and sustainability.

In a letter to the Yorkshire and Humberside Assembly chairman, Dr Thiede said: "You can therefore understand my very many concerns for our rural areas when there is always a shortage of funds and priorities go to the larger conurbations."

She said: "I am seriously concerned about the future or rural communities, especially in the aftermath of foot-and-mouth when such devastating effects are still grinding on and which are so poorly understood by the majority of the urban population."

Dr Thiede, who worked as a GP in the Thirsk area, was "appalled" at the apparent lack of understanding of rural issues and anxious that regional changes in administration did not add to the concerns. Her comments follow widespread opposition to a referendum on the regional assembly.