IN these days of ever harsher cuts to public sector expenditure, cuts in services seem to fall especially hard on rural communities.

In areas like the Yorkshire Dales, volunteers and voluntary organisations are increasingly vital to provide badly needed public services which we once took for granted, let alone the many worthwhile environmental, cultural and educational activities that add so much to quality of life.

In an article in the current Yorkshire Dales Review, the magazine of the Yorkshire Dales Society, it is pointed out that an estimated 19.8 million adults in Britain give volunteer time for some cause at least once a year, and 12.7 million once a month. Volunteers are the nation’s unsung heroes.

Not only the Yorkshire Dales Society itself, but organisations such as the Friends of Settle-Carlisle Line, Upper Wharfedale Field Society, the U3A, the National Trust, and our numerous local history and archaeological groups, could not function without a dedicated team of volunteers.

In many cases, volunteers such as the Yorkshire Dales Volunteers in the National Park, Friends of Airedale Hospital Trust or Age UK work alongside paid professional officers to provide essential environmental or social care services. Their contributions are worth many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pounds. Several local libraries are now manned by volunteers.

Volunteers also provide a huge range of fundraising activities, from the many very well run shops now a familiar sight in the high streets of our towns to large scale events such as the British Heart Foundation's Three Peaks Challenge. It was once estimated that Grassington had almost 100 voluntary groups from chess clubs to the Grassington Festival run by energetic committees of the mainly retired.

Whilst the overwhelming majority of volunteers are, inevitably, older people, with sufficient pension or superannuation to live on, who can therefore give their time freely to a worthwhile local cause, younger people are still vitally important in organisations such as the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers. Where would our two excellent outdoor rescue organisations, the Cave Rescue Organisation or the Upper Wharfedale Fell Rescue be without its younger, able bodied volunteers?

Volunteers also help fill the gaps that occur when small businesses can no longer make ends meet, perhaps as a social enterprise or Community Interest Company. There are now two community run pubs in the Dales employing part or full-time staff. Clapham’s village shop has recently been rescued by a community group, with 165 shareholders, in an enterprise that employs a manager but depends heavily on its team of dedicated volunteers.

Rural transport is another key area of need.

As buses are cut by cash-strapped local authorities, who in the case of North Yorkshire County Council plan to cut their already meagre funding for rural buses by a further drastic two thirds in 2016-2017, volunteer-driven minibuses such as that provided by Grassington Hub are now seen as the only solution for communities living away from the limited number of commercial operated bus routes on the edge of the Dales.

But has the “rolling back of the State” in 21st century Britain gone too far? It is all very well taking tough line in urban areas where sheer numbers of people, and potential customers, exist to support services such as buses, shops, pubs and cinemas on a commercial basis. Rural communities with greater distances to travel, and therefore costs, and smaller populations, are much more vulnerable.

Decisions taken in Whitehall to meet national deficit reducing targets ignore the massive impacts of such cuts on vulnerable people in areas like the Dales, which may result in far higher, longer terms costs of emergency care and service provision.

There is also something deeply worrying about asking volunteers to take on work which at the moment is provided by paid professionals. If people are to lose their jobs and livelihoods, is it right that their work is taken over by an unpaid volunteer? Moreover that volunteer may be happy to give time on an occasional or even regular basis, but what when that commitment becomes five or even six unpaid days a week, long hours, in all weathers?

And this may only be a temporary solution. The present generation of over 60s are fortunate to have generous index-linked occupational pensions and savings. But what happens when people currently in their 50s retire without such pension protection? Future retirees may need to work part-time to supplement their meagre pensions and not be available to offer endless days to man a shop or drive a minibus.

The Yorkshire Dales has a huge tradition of self-reliance. Maybe this self-reliance has to work in different ways, setting up new kinds of enterprise to seek different ways of funding services from public, private and voluntary sources. The new independent Kettlewell Youth Hostel and Post Office is a model for this approach. The Community Energy in Gargrave and Malhamdale initiative is another inspiring model. Could local communities with innovative ideas and a more commercial approach work with local professional bus operators to provide the bus services that people actually want and need, rather than the “poor law” minimalist approach of a cash-starved county council?

We live in a time of perhaps dramatic economic and social change. Rural communities are going to learn how to adapt or die. One thing is certain. If the Dales are going to survive in this period of nationally imposed austerity, volunteers will be the driving force.