Lorna Allies 

The Commission for Rural Communities and its predecessor, the Countryside Agency, has published a State of the Countryside report every year for the past decade.

But this year it was decided that the money would instead be better spent holding a conference for rural stakeholders.

Commission chairman Stuart Burgess said: "We are taking the opportunity to review and reflect on the evidence that will help us to continue to provide important information on rural statistics and trends.

"This includes our ongoing State of the Countryside updates, as well as contributing to refreshing our '10 big numbers' that presents headline statistics about living and working in rural England."

The conference was seen as an opportunity to bring together expert speakers and delegates from different backgrounds to review evidence from a variety of sources and consider the impacts for rural areas. www.rsnonline.org.uk [accessed 13/7/09]