HARTLEBURY’S MP has joined others to send a message to the Government that they want what they describe as underfunding for rural areas to be addressed.

A petition presented to the Commons was signed by nearly 600 residents of Conservative Peter Luff’s Mid Worcestershire constituency.

He explained: “Rural areas suffer underfunding for basic services. There is an ongoing fight to close the gap between the funding given to rural and urban communities. At the moment councils in rural areas are allocated less money to pay for the costs of services, although, often, they are more expensive.

“I and other MPs that represent rural constituencies want to see this unfairness addressed, so, the Rural Fair Share Campaign group started a petition to show the Government how important this issue is to rural communities.”

The petition read: “That the petitioners believe that the Local Government Finance Settlement is unfair to rural communities, notes that the Rural Penalty sees urban areas receive 50 per cent more support per head than rural areas despite higher costs in rural service delivery and opposes the planned freezing of this inequality in the 2013/14 settlement for six years until 2020.

“The petitioners, therefore, request that the House of Commons urges the Government to reduce the Rural Penalty in staged steps by at least 10 per cent by 2020.”

More than 17, 000 signatures were collected nationwide.

MPs presented the signatures they collected in their constituencies in the House of Commons.

Mr Luff added: “I hope this petition will show the Government that rural people believe something must be done to address the gap.”