Some of the comments here about the effects of pollution are very city centric
Traffic pollution in the centre of major towns and cities is clearly a very serious issue, but that's simply not the case in rural areas, with their open countryside/fields and low population density.
I’ve found quite a few postings earlier in this thread to be like that in relation to car ownership. As I pointed out earlier, for people living in a rural area with limited public transport, owning a car is often an expensive necessity rather than a wasteful luxury. Cutting fuel duty by 5p a litre is better than nothing but I have the feeling that if things don’t improve in Ukraine, 5p and more will very quickly go back on the price of fuel.
For those who have lived all of their lives in urban areas, and especially large cities, and have only experienced living in a rural area for a short holiday, it is difficult to appreciate what is like to have infrequent or no public transport and often no shops for many miles. I don’t live in a very isolated area, being less than 10 miles from a large city, but even here I am almost 2 miles from the nearest shops in a nearby town with no evening or Sunday buses. My cousin’s wife has only ever lived in London and finds it very hard to adapt whenever she visits. I get the impression that she thinks we are very primitive with no shops, limited buses, few street lights at night and above all no pavements and mud on the road.
