A report claims the cost of living in rural areas like Cornwall is rising twice as fast as big cities.

It says families here are forking out up to £2,000 a year extra on basics like food and fuel.

High oil prices are being blamed.

Tim Price is from NFU Mutual which did the research:

"What is driving this is the cost of oil and the big impacts are the rises in petrol and diesel prices for people to get out and about in their own cars and that being reflected back in the things that we buy locally,  where the distribution costs have increased again because of rising fuel prices"

He adds Cornwall is being dealt a double whammy:

"Jobs that pay well are very hard to find, but the cost of living is high because of high house prices, rents too are expensive and if people do manage to find a job, very often they have to drive quite a way to get to it"

However, despite rising prices, rural living beat city-dwelling life satisfaction scores in most other areas, with rural-dwellers enjoying particularly higher levels of satisfaction with their health and local environment.

As a result countryside residents are happier overall and less stressed than their urban counterparts.