Crawley’s motto is “I grow and I rejoice”, therefore, new Labour administration of the Borough Council’s decision to scrap plans to regenerate our town centre – providing the much needed facelift to boost Crawley’s appeal as a central destination for shoppers to visit and to support local businesses – highlights Labour’s broader issue: a lack of aspiration and vision.
As Crawley MP, my concern is that Labour’s decision to rip up the regeneration plans and to leave our town’s crumbling architecture stuck in the 1960s could drive away business and shoppers to other emerging retail hubs. Crawley has some of the largest funding reserves in the country – surely this worthy ambition merits the investment which could no doubt be recovered through subsequent additional business rates in due course.
Through the numerous street surgeries and community events I have hosted across our town, what is clear to me is that the majority of residents agree that more should be done to regenerate our town and Labour’s ‘fine as it is’ approach fails to meet that aspiration.
Thankfully, however, the Government is taking steps to support the small businesses that are the lifeblood of our town centres, including:
lStopping over-zealous parking enforcement and unreasonable parking practices;
lConsultations on new permitted development rights to help get empty and redundant buildings get back into use;
lClarity on retail land reviews;
lCutting retail red tape;
lAnd numerous other measures which can be found at: www.gov.uk/government/news/eric-pickles-launches-package-of-support-for-local-shops
With specific respect to the burden that business rates often place on local small firms:
lSmall shops, pubs and businesses with a Rateable Value of less than £50,000 will receive £1,000 off their rates bill for the next two years.
lThis year’s annual indexation increase bills is being capped at 2 per cent;
lBusinesses will be allowed to pay over 12 instalments instead of 10, helping all businesses with their cash flow;
lThe doubling of small business rate relief, originally introduced in 2010, will continue;
lLocal firms taking on an extra property will keep their small business rate relief for an extra year, helping small firms expand;
lTo help get empty shops back into use, we are introducing a new reoccupation relief that halves rates for 18 months for businesses taking on a long-term empty shop.
The astro-turf and kids beach in Queen’s Square which has been such a success over Crawley Carnival was introduced by the out-going Conservative administration of the Council, as was £3 million of new investment for the town centre – let’s hope this isn’t cancelled too by lack of vision Labour.