Polly has marked this year’s Small Business Saturday by visiting Ramsgate town centre with the Ramsgate Empty Shops Action Group.
During the visit Polly spoke with small business owners in Ramsgate town centre, including Potters, York Street Gallery and CoCo Barclay and expressed her support for new powers that will enable councils to bring empty shops back into use.
Polly said for too long absent landlords had been allowed to sit on empty shops as they accrued value as property investments, without making a meaningful effort to market them for rent.
The prevalence of boarded up shops was having a detrimental impact on town centres, the MP said, undermining their appeal to visitors and squandering the shops’ potential as spaces of economic and community value.
She said:
Small Business Saturday is about celebrating the enormous value small businesses bring to our communities and our economy. It’s been an absolute pleasure to talk to many local entrepreneurs today and hear from them exactly what they want to see from a rejuvenated Ramsgate town centre. There is so much energy and enthusiasm for the town centre and there has been some progress including the reinstatement of the market and the refurbishment of the Harbour Bar which has improved the look and feel of the High Street. But there is much more to do.
I’m delighted to have been working with the Ramsgate Empty Shops Action Group to get Ramsgate’s empty shops back open and in use for local residents. We’ve got to end the blight of boarded up shops, so that we can get cash registers ringing again, more visitors pounding our pavements, and breathe a new lease of life into our struggling high streets.