Plaid Cymru says new vision needed for town centres

Plaid Cymru MEP Jill Evans has called for greater support to be given to breathe life into Welsh town centres.

Town centres are the heart of communities, generating local wealth and bringing people together. People are passionate about their town centres and and want them to succeed.

Plaid Cymru has long been championing the importance of local economies in generating national wealth. Every £1 spent in a local business selling local produce is worth twice as much to the economy as £1 spent in a supermarket, due to local reinvestment and spending.

It is therefore vital to ensure more people support their local town centres across Wales, making them the vibrant heart of the community they once were.

The Party of Wales’ lead European candidate, Jill Evans MEP said:

“The importance of town centres is often underestimated. They have been allowed to wilt under successive governments in both Westminster and Cardiff and it’s time the Welsh Government produced a strategy to turn the situation around.

“Plaid Cymru has called for the business rates system to be completely reformed, levelling the playing field for small town centre businesses to compete with large out-of-town retail parks.

“In terms of business rates, Wales is the most expensive country in the UK for small businesses and the cheapest country for large multinationals.

“The system is clearly wrong and a Plaid Cymru government would make levelling the playing field a priority.

“We can’t turn the clock back, though, so we will need different models of town centres for a best-fit approach. This will involve a range of local strategies to create new stores and more pleasant places to shop so that we can increase the number of customers and people using those centres.

“We need the Welsh Government to produce a much more comprehensive plan to take on that challenge and lift town centres back to their rightful place as economically vibrant community hubs.”