MORE than £8 million extra will be spent on services in Devon next year after county councillors won a battle with Government over funding for rural areas.

Local Government secretary Greg Clarke confirmed Devon would get an extra £8.4 million in rural support and other grants for 2016/17 on top of the provisional settlement previously announced.

It makes Devon County Council the fourth highest beneficiary in the country after robust lobbying from council leader John Hart and the county’s MPs.

It is proposed an extra £5 million will go into strengthening resilience in social care for elderly and vulnerable people.

A further £1.5 million will be set aside to fund the county’s response to severe storms with an extra £1 million spent on highways drainage, safety defects and hedging.

£1 million will be set aside to fund more efficient and cost-effective working using new technology.

In addition £40,000 extra will go to support the Citizens’ Advice Bureau.

Devon County Council leader, John Hart, said: “I am delighted the Government has listened to our robust lobbying about the high cost of providing effective services to people in sparsely populated rural areas.

“We have campaigned consistently for greater resources to be devoted to rural areas like Devon which regularly lose out to urban areas up country when it comes to national spending priorities.

“I would like to thank all our Devon MPs who have supported us so consistently at Westminster in challenging Ministers.

“We still face a very tough budget settlement with some very difficult decisions. “We will use the additional money to support our growing population of elderly and vulnerable residents and to boost the resilience of our road network after the repeated soakings we have suffered over the past months with successive gales blowing the leaves off the trees and clogging our drains.”

Devon is now set to spend over £443 million on services in the new financial year.

The budget includes a £16.1 million boost for under pressure care services. The People budget will rise to £316.1 million.

But there will be a reduction of £3.4 million in Place services which cover highways, libraries and the economy – down from £97.3 million to £93.9 million.

The budget for the Corporate Services department, which provides backroom support, will fall by 8.8 per cent to £33.4 million