TRENDS in agriculture, earnings and the hi-tech sector continue to distance Herefordshire economically from the rest of the country.

While the UK saw a two-year, six per cent slump in the number of people employed on the land, Herefordshire jumped by six per cent.

Income levels, always lower in Herefordshire compared to the rest of the country, continued to diverge. Over three years the average weekly wage rose 14 per cent in the county, 17 per cent in the West Midlands and 16 per cent in the UK. At £448.20 the average weekly wage is over 20 per cent higher across the UK than in Herefordshire, on £364.

Christopher Harvey of the Chamber of Commerce said: "It is good there is growth in the earnings but not good that growth has not kept pace with the rest of the country or the region.

"If this continues it can encourage people to migrate causing demographic imbalance."

The hi-tech sector, with just 64 employees in the county, remains underdeveloped, hampered in part by a lack of broadband access. Just nine per cent of businesses use broadband communications, over three-quarters do not have a website and nearly half have no internet access.

Mr Harvey said: "Herefordshire suffers because of the difficulty in accessing broadband communications. We have been doing quite a lot to improve this and have information on help for businesses to get broad band."

Pat on the back

and good health

SUCCESS in controlling two of the biggest killers in the country is a major tribute to the work of the health service in the county.

While mortality rates through cancer and heart disease in the under-75s dropped by over 10 per cent, suicides kept up a steady increase, outstripping the rest of the country by nearly 30 per cent.

Herefordshire counts nearly 13 suicides per 100,000 population every year, about three more than the UK as a whole.

Together with an increase in the number of emergency psychiatric readmissions it is seen as an indicator to the success, or failure, in addressing mental health problems.

Writing in 'Health in Herefordshire', Dr Mike Deakin, director of public health at Herefordshire Primary Care Trust said: "Mortality rates for suicides and motor vehicle accidents are significantly higher in Herefordshire than nationally.

"Both of these require work between a number of agencies. However, it must be recognised that both of these are complex issues, without any simple solutions."

The good news is a fall in the number of under-75s who died of circulatory disease, 102 per 100,000 compared to 120 nation-wide and the number of cancer mortalities, 113, compared to 130 across the UK.

A drop in the number of 11 to 15-year-olds smoking one or more cigarettes per week, from 13 to 11 per cent, is highlighted as a success, as is a static four per cent pregnancy rate among 15 to 17-year-olds.

And a new statistic for this year's report reveals that nearly 20 per cent of women are smokers at childbirth.

How we

shape up

The county has a high proportion of Good Samaritans, nearly 90 per cent of us help a neighbour in an unpaid capacity every last six months.

20 per cent of us take a bus each week.

Out of seven sites around the county only two have seen a decrease in air pollution (Bromyard and Ledbury).

We recycle 12.5 per cent of all our waste.

A quarter of the county use sports or leisure facilities at least once a month.

There are 39 sports pitches available to the public in Herefordshire, eight more than the average in England.

The length of hedgerows in the county increased by 368 metres in a year.

22 per cent of a survey group said they had written to a local newspaper in 2002, 77 per cent had signed a petition and 20 per cent had contacted their MP.

Less than 10 per cent of the same survey group feel the council does enough to give people the opportunity to influence decisions.

You are 12 times less likely to work in the high-tech industry in Herefordshire than the rest of the country.

There are 4,000 beds in the hospitality trade in the county of which 31 per cent were occupied in 2001.

Unemployment fell by 0.6 per cent between 1999 and 2000, but so did the number of people with jobs, from 74,129 to 72,727.

83 per cent of us live within 2km of a post office.

Only 28 per cent of new homes in the county are built on brown field sites, compared to 60 per cent in the rest of the country.