LUXURIOUS four-wheeled drive vehicles are far more visible than battered old Land Rovers in North Yorkshire villages these days - on the weekend or in the evenings at least.

These off-roaders spend most of the time on motorways, transporting their owners from rural retreat to city office and back. They are symbolic of the changing nature of the countryside.

Most rural workers can afford neither the car nor the house. Their family may have been living in the same village for generations, but they cannot buy into the modern country lifestyle.

Only those with an income large enough to sustain a huge mortgage can do that - the average North York Moors property costs £156,000 these days. Rural wage rates are on average 12 per cent lower than those in urban areas, so locals are being pushed out.

Country life has been threatened by the influx of wealthy outsiders for decades. But rocketing house prices are accelerating this process. As the Countryside Agency report makes clear, the lack of affordable homes is the most pressing problem facing rural areas today.

The fabric of country life is at risk. Village shops, post offices and pubs are vanishing. Centuries-old traditions are disappearing with them.

The very reason for living in a village - to be part of a close-knit community - is undermined if most residents are too busy commuting to get to know their neighbours. The hubbub of village life is being exchanged for a ghostly silence for much of the working week.

There is no easy answer to this problem. But doing nothing is not an option. The Countryside Agency's statistics emphasise the yawning gap between the haves and have-nots.

We need imaginative schemes that create affordable rural homes for those who live and work in the countryside and understand it. And we need them now.

If market forces are left alone to decide who lives where, a way of life could be lost forever.

Updated: 10:25 Tuesday, May 28, 2002