Film to highlight the issues facing older rural residents

The film’s content will be created on the back of a campaign that launched last week, which aims to discover the common problems elderly people living in the countryside experience.

The ‘Over the Hill?’ initiative wants to hear from communities who are successfully working to improve rural housing and rural services for their older residents.

From rural warden schemes to co-operative living, the successful initiatives will then be highlighted on film and in a campaign booklet designed to ‘keep the needs of older people on the national agenda.’

The project, launched by the Rural Media Company, follows a report by the National Housing Association that the number of pensioners living in the countryside will increase by almost 1million by 2020. It calculates the number of over 65s living in rural England will reach 3.23m by 2020 – a rise of 907,900 (39 per cent) from 2008.

Project ambassador Elinor Goodman described the project as an imaginative way of drawing attention to the ‘social time-bomb’ facing rural areas.

“There are a disproportionate and growing number of older people in the countryside, some of whom are already living in considerable deprivation.

“This project will help local communities, the public and policymakers face the issues and focus on real solutions.”

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