Across our constituency, town centre regeneration is a long-running challenge – and an ongoing one. We’ve all seen the journey both Farnham and Bordon have been on, with the Brightwells site and the new town centre respectively, while discussions also remain ongoing in Haslemere about the future of the Fairground site. Where our local projects are complete or part-complete, the sites are still far from the bustling, fully occupied community hubs that residents were originally promised. No matter how many buildings go up, regeneration won’t succeed unless we get the fundamentals right. That means not just creating retail units and leisure facilities on paper, but ensuring there’s a thriving local economy ready to bring those places to life. And that’s where national policy matters.
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NewsTranscript
00:00So what makes a thriving town centre? Well in my view it's business. It's the
00:04shops, it's the restaurants, it's the cafes, it's the retailers that really make
00:07the area and we've got two developments in our area. Brightwells in Farnham where
00:11I've been having a long discussion with the councils about how to make that
00:14better and the new town centre in Borden where Sainsbury's are going to break
00:19ground this week. Really exciting work but the only way we're going to make
00:23them thrive and be successful is if national government supports them. Now
00:28I've raised this issue with the Business Secretary last week and the
00:32problem is Labour are putting taxes on businesses that's national insurance
00:35that's the increase in minimum wage and other local taxes that just hinder
00:41business. So what I'm saying to the government is we need to reduce the taxes
00:46on business we need to give them the opportunity to thrive not just the ones
00:49that are already in our town centres but all those entrepreneurs out there who
00:53want to start small businesses who want to thrive in our communities because that
00:57is the only way that our town centres are going to survive and thrive in the future.