Chamber members had the opportunity to highlight and discuss the challenges facing the local business community with Chloe Smith, MP for Norwich North today (Wednesday 09 August).
Amongst the topics discussed were Brexit; business rates; the need for better broadband and mobile coverage; road and rail improvements; and the skills and enterprise agenda.
On Brexit, the business community highlighted the need for the Government to move forward with negotiations and asked for continued communication and engagement when considering replacement UK regulations. With business rates, the group stressed the urgent need for the Government to review the business rates system to provide a much fairer system of collecting business contributions.
Mobile and broadband coverage was again raised as a considerable challenge to those businesses wanting to be able to take advantage of new technology developments and compete with the rest of the UK. They noted that unreliable connections act as barriers to growth, which put those companies most in need of support at a competitive disadvantage.
All agreed that more work needed to be done to close the gap between business and education, some of which can be done locally, but more support from central Government was called for to help put more focus on the enterprise.
Commenting on the meeting, Nova Fairbank, Public Affairs Manager from Norfolk Chamber said:
“We are really pleased to welcome Chloe Smith to the Norfolk Chamber office to hear from the local business community. It is important that our MPs understand the needs of business and the Chamber will continue to ensure our members views are hear loud and clear in Westminster.”
