As many people will be aware I stood back from the council and after 28 years of representing Shepton I needed a rest from the continual circle of meetings and casework.
Shepton is my home town and I’m greatly proud of the place I was raised and have had the pleasure to call home.
This does not blind me to the many challenges that the community face and the opportunities we must seize.
Small market towns like Shepton needs decent public services, a strong economy and a real focus on tackling the real deprivation that faces us.
Shepton has an excellent monthly Sunday market, when Somerset County Council threatened to downgrade our town’s essential Library, the Town Council under my leadership and with the great support of Garfield Kennedy and Jon Hardy and other town councillors used the Sunday market to gain public support to build the successful campaign that kept the library in the heart of our community.
The Sunday market is run by a super team that work extremely hard and after COVID has this year had to relaunch this community event.
This community interest company has many more stalls than the council run Friday market and offers local shopkeepers the opportunity to open to utilise the increased footfall that the Sunday market generates, allowing local people to see what the shops have to offer.
The Town Council is sponsoring the Neighbourhood plan https://sheptonmalletneighbourhoodplan.org.uk/ I genuinely hope the Town Council will be at the market to collect feedback on the consultation document.
Like all small community initiatives they deserve the full support of our councils, as they build community assets and keep local money in our town. One key theme has to be about creating a strong local economy and how we support local business to keep more money within our area to create local prosperity.
We need to find a way of helping local entrepreneurs to build their businesses, through support and advice and to access finance to invest. I see young people desperately trying to launch their businesses and it is obvious they need a helping hand, we must find ways of delivering this support
Anyway, I look forward to the market this Sunday
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