The effects are especially pronounced in rural areas, where the isolation of older residents has emerged as one of the greatest, and largely hidden, costs of local councils’ straitened budgets, with funding slashed by half nationwide since 2010, the National Audit Office has found.

Cumbria, Land of Beauty and Poverty

While experts say these problems are common to much of Britain’s countryside, they are particularly severe in Cumbria. Best known for its Lake District National Park and historic lakeside mansions, it is also one of the poorest rural areas in England.

Twenty-nine of its communities are among the 10 percent most deprived nationwide. Household income levels trail the national average in all but one district.

And by 2020, nearly a quarter of Cumbria’s residents will be over 65 — 5 percentage points higher than in 2008 and double the proportion projected for London. Half of those have long-term health problems or disabilities.

Cumbria has had problems since its lead and zinc mines closed in the 1960s. But they have been amplified by austerity. This year, Cumbria County Council plans to cut about $23 million from its budget to cushion a steady drop in funding from the national government — to $17.7 million this year from nearly $200 million in 2012.

By 2021, the council expects the grant to disappear entirely, despite recent declarations by Conservative Party leaders that the austerity era is over. In April last year, Cumbria put up its local council tax by 4 percent, the first rise in several years, after the government eased restrictions on such increases.