IN an exclusive interview with the Post, Devon County Councillor Barry Parsons (Conservative) discussed his concerns over funding for rural transport and its effect on the local population of Holsworthy and Torridge.

With proposed plans for £55.7-billion to be spent on the ‘High Speed 2’ (HS2) project in London, Cllr Parsons expressed how he feels this is a ‘very London centric decision’ and that the government are ‘not looking after its rural community in the way that it should’.

He said: “I see this country as a family, with London as the ‘parent’ or head of the family. London is considered the heartbeat of this country and they are looking after themselves, which often leads to rural areas, like us, to be forgotten when it comes to funding.

“We are several hundreds of millions of pounds behind on what we need for our road networks but this ‘London centricity’ has seen money being spent in urban environments and not in rural communities like Holsworthy and Torridge.

“The key word this government is pushing is ‘productivity’ but this in the past has been at the expense of peoples happiness.

“I feel very strongly about the fact that, I think, the £55.7-billion for the high speed railway system, HS2, should be dissolved and a refocus made on getting our roads fixed.

“We would need around £12-billion for road repairs and if you look at what is going into the HS2 project, I think our priorities are wrong and we [the government] are focusing on the few and not the many.”

Cllr Parsons linked the importance of road maintenance in Holsworthy back to the recent Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP), which suggests more people be treated at home in an attempt to reduce the number of people staying in hospital for prolonged periods.

He said: “We have an ageing population in this part of the country, who rely on our road networks to access things like health care and I want to stress how important it is, for me, that we improve our road networks so those being cared for at home do not have to worry about the emergency services not being able to get through due to poor road conditions.”

He added that there has been a distinct lack of communication between the NHS and the public, which has left many members of the public uncertain over the future of local facilities.

Cllr Parsons explained that Devon County Council have been engaging more with the NHS in recent months in order to encourage more transparency in how services will be provided in the Torridge district in the future.

Cllr Parsons continued to highlight the issues faced by many in rural communities like Holsworthy and stressed ‘there is no where else like Holsworthy when it comes to accessing major hospital care’.

He added: “Communities differ across Devon but no one else has as different needs as Holsworthy when you look at it in terms of access and factor in travel time. If someone requires emergency care for an A&E unit they have to travel to Plymouth, Exeter or Barnstaple — which I think is something that needs looking into before major funding is spent on a project like HS2.”

The improvement of local road networks, especially in Holsworthy, has been a hot topic for many years. Cllr Parsons said: “People like me, who are getting older, rely on transport in order to keep their independence. An elderly person wants to be able to get directly from A to B they don’t want to have to navigate an often complicated train system and have a staggered journey from A to B.

“The arteries into this part of the world are our roads not rail, we need to make sure we value that and our roads should not be at the expense of city development.”

In the last census carried out in 2011 it was discovered that 1.4-million people use the train networks in this country to get to work.

When compared with the number of people who use public transport, like cars or buses, to get to work (4.3-million) Cllr Parson said he thinks it is ‘short-sighted and not very forward thinking’ to be dedicating funding to a system that is not a main priority for the country as a whole.

He put this down again to the ‘London centric’ thinking of government and said: “To neglect our road systems in favour of this high speed rail network seems ludicrous to me when you look at the figures of how many, or how few, use trains on a daily basis.

“Around 50% of people in the UK live in rural communities and it is a shame to think that we, in Holsworthy and Torridge as a whole, are being forgotten and sidelined in favour of urban projects like the HS2 project.

“I feel there needs to be a radical rethink on how funding is spent in this country. When Teresa May came into power she said she wanted a ‘fair society’ and I don’t think this has happened yet — what we have to do is look after our rural way of life and at the moment we are not doing that.”