A recent study carried out by Stuart Burgess, the Government’s Rural Advocate, found 200,000 young people are leaving the countryside / year. The age bracket in question is 15 – 29, this is something that correlates with statistics on Kissinggates.com where the biggest growth is in the over 30’s.
This shift of under 30’s leaving the countryside will have a lasting damage on rural industries, most notably the agriculture sector. Rural services are already suffering- pub and post office closures will experience a compounding growth across the countryside, spreading like a disease, if more of our under 30’s leave in search of better paid jobs. Also the fantastic British pub culture will be wiped out if the youth continue to leave the countryside.
This problem was in fact the inspiration behind Kissinggates.com, James Vestbirk our founder returned to his family farm and saw the problems of pub closures, he then started a social network and dating site for the rural community – kisisnggates.com, the home of rural dating.
Dr Burgess report found three key areas to focus; finding somewhere to live, work and socialise in the countryside. Astonishingly the report highlights 60% of housing in urban areas can access fast cable Internet compared to only 1.5% in the countryside. These kind of statistics have been considered in Kissinggates.com design and build where we have focused on function, form and load speed to help people in rural broadband black spots. We have previously blogged about Goverment reports on Rural Broadband improves for Farmers but there is clearly a long way to go.
We hope Kissinggates.com can help the under 30s find a reason to stay and support the countryside like their parents, grand parent and great grand parents did. It free, safe and simple to register today.
