A RESEARCH project to establish living costs in Moray and the Highlands and Islands has won funding from Moray Council.
Councillors this week agreed to pump £5,000 into the £130,000 study.
Highlands and Islands Enterprise has allocated £50,000 towards the cost of the study by the team from the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University.
The study, looking at the whole of rural Scotland, will be done in conjunction with the Centre for Remote and Rural Studies at the University of the Highlands and Islands.
The study team will attempt to establish the ‘Minimum Income Standard’ for people living in rural areas.
It will do that by finding out the different goods and services people believe they need for an acceptable standard of living, and looking at the cost of them.
Councillor Fiona Murdoch, chair of Moray Council’s economic development and infrastructure committee, said it was important to pinpoint areas of poverty and rural deprivation.
Highland Council, which has a population of 220,000, has contributed £10,000 towards the cost of the project.
Officials recommended that Moray Council, covering an area with a population of 87,000, should contribute £5,000.
