YESTERDAY’S budget introduced for the first time by Chancellor Alistair Darling received a mixed reception from rural organisations.

It was roundly condemned by the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) for failing “to tackle any action to stem the haemorrhage of cash flowing out of the countryside and has done nothing to provide rural businesses with a much needed transfusion.”

Henry Aubrey-Fletcher, president of the CLA, commented: “It seems that the promises to rural proof government policies have been long forgotten and the countryside has once again been left as the Cinderella at this particular ball,”

The Campaign to Protect Rural England, however, was pleased with some of the Chancellor’s “green” proposals “although they do not go far enough”- welcomed plans to reduce the use of plastic bags in supermarkets, but said the new transport policy was a “major disappointment.”

“The Budget statement contains little to suggest that the Chancellor has abandoned the ‘ostrich approach’ to aviation policy, hoping that its climate change impacts might go away if they are ignored,” said the CPRE’s head of campaigns Ben Stafford.

The huge increases in sales tax and road fund licence costs for so-called “gas guzzler” vehicles will be a major blow to farmers and other residents of the wilder areas of the Yorkshire Dales, who need 4x4 vehicles to go about their daily business.