decisions you'd be shocked, then, by the state of most semi-rural bus routes, never mind the truly bus routes! I grew up in a village the same size as OP's friend, five miles from the nearest shop, post-office etc - which where in the next village.
In those heady 70s days, there were two buses a day to one of the nearest towns, one in the morning and one in the afternoon (you'd be stuck if you just wanted not to have to walk to the shops, as there was a general store, a couple of corner shops and a green grocer, but nothing to fill the time waiting to go back) but this was soon cut to one a day. Since the 90s, that's been none a day. The bottom line is, there's not enough demand - not helped by the fact that buses don't run often enough in the first place, so people who need to work etc buy cars - and it's not economic. When surveyed, the villagers all said they wanted the bus service to remain - but no-one actually used the buses to ensure it did so (and why would you, when they were so inconvenient?).
A school bus comes and picks children up for secondary schools, in the town about 12 miles away, but that's not quite the same thing.
In the village now, there are no actual council houses, as those were all sold off, and anyone who rents anywhere would not be able to do so because of the caps on LHA and the high rents in the area. There's one tied cottage still, but as the estate it belongs to broke the tie a while ago on the other side, that will probably happen now the cottage on the other side has become vacant - and why wouldn't they? It has a market value of half a millionish, give or take, and the farm it belongs to is now no longer a working one.
Meanwhile, people in the village moan about having to pay a premium for cleaners, gardeners, baby-sitters etc, because there is no longer the diverse population base in the village that there was even in the 70s, but don't realise that they have helped create this situation through their desire to relocate somewhere more fashionable and "rural". The situation is even more down in the valley, because the postcode changes there and is a far more "desirable" one as it starts with different first letters 
The situation for the rural poor is often far, far worse than it is for the urban poor, which is dire enough. I was absolutely shocked at the poverty in rural Somerset when I worked there a few years ago, which was at a much deeper and greater level than I had ever seen in the most deprived areas of the urban North East.
Those saying the lady in the OP has to move are correct - and I am sure she knows this. But since she's recently become a lone parent, it won't be straightforward -in addition to the moving costs and the deposit, she will have to cope with LL who won't accept people on Housing Benefit. I was looking for a rental about 6 years ago, and over a period of 6 months, nothing in the three nearest towns in the area (two of which have serious pretensions, admittedly, but one of which is a rank pit) had anything advertised where the LL would accept anyone on DSS. Sad but true - if you're in commuterville, you can wait a long time before being able to find a home to move to: LL prefer someone with a job, and there's no shortage of those in areas close to, for example, London, Reading, Birmingham, Bracknell, Slough etc