Tony Blair on a recent visit to Post Office in Cornwall

The closure of local facilities like post offices, shops and doctors' surgeries makes life especially difficult for poorer and older people, who find themselves increasing isolated.

It also threatens the community spirit which is such an important part of country life.

The chairman of the Countryside Agency, Ewen Cameron, says some of the things people most value about life in the countryside are being eroded - and that is worrying them.

"There is an unsettling fear that villages and market towns are losing their sense of community, as well as the relative security and freedom from crime which many have enjoyed for many years," says Mr Cameron.

The report was prepared before the current debate over rural policing following the Martin case, but it says some types of crime, including vehicle-related thefts, are increasing more quickly in rural areas than in cities, although the overall risk of crime is still lower in the countryside.

Criminals are increasingly turning to rural areas

Other trends which have affected cities for years are now hitting the countryside hard - rural church attendance, for instance, has reduced by around 40% in the past decade, and this has an extra impact on local communities since the village church often acts as a focal point for a range of social activities.

The picture is not all bleak - the report points out that rural communities have despite all the pressures managed to keep a greater sense of identity than many urban areas, and people in the countryside are generally healthier than city-dwellers, even if health services are often more difficult to access.

And some of the newer parts of the economy like financial services and information technology do provide opportunities for rural areas to offset some of the problems faced by traditional industries such as farming.