SOUTH Lakes MP Tim Farron has said he will renew his fight to ‘plug the funding gap’ for small, rural GP surgeries.

Mr Farron is planning to table an early day motion calling for a strategic small surgeries fund, after a similar bill got to second reading in the last Parliament.

He said around £40,000 a year would help threatened surgeries, such as Hawkshead and Coniston, that are “economically unviable but medically essential.”

“They do it with rural schools, and a lot of people agree this is the most straightforward way of solving the problem,” he added.