The talk established that rural poverty is not simply a diluted version of urban hardship, but one defined by distance, density, and cost. For rural families, transport dependency acts as a hidden tax, with the simple acts of getting to work or accessing essential services requiring fuel, insurance, and significant travel time. This is compounded by the housing crisis, where the rise of second homes and holiday lets is causing community displacement, making it impossible for local families to remain in their home areas.

Crucially, Gemma highlighted how our current systems often conceal the problem. The Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) statistically erase scattered hardship, and funding formulas grant urban residents 50% more per head than rural residents. This systemic failure is compounded by digital exclusion, which leaves over 75,000 adults in Cornwall lacking essential digital skills.

CRCC’s core mission is to make the invisible visible. The solution requires a commitment to new metrics that account for distance, explicit funding of the "rural premium" in commissioning, and a call to action to reframe rural poverty not as picturesque resilience, but as a solvable injustice. The challenge, she concluded, is to fix the system that is currently not designed to see or support the people it serves.