I recently met with Kent's 'Rural plc', an organisation that promotes investment in countryside and farming businesses across the county. Farming in Kent is a big business. Within the county the farming sector alone is worth £5.4billion, employs 85,000 people and, were it to be viewed as a company, would rank 57th in the FTSE 100 list of the largest pubic companies registered in the UK. As well as the core business of food production, farmers and other areas of rural enterprise are diversifying into many different types of business. Locally we have seen this with the success of new companies like Growth Rings, Alpaca Annie, Romney Tweed, and Romney Marsh Wools.
It is also significant this week that the members of the National Farmers Union have voted at their conference to support Britain’s continued membership of the European Union. Farmers know that a large part of the money that is paid into the European Union returns back to these shores in the form of subsidies to farmers. These payments also go towards the management and preservation of the countryside. Farmers are right to be concerned that there would be no guarantee that this support would continue if we left the EU, and spending decisions like this were subject to all the usual pressures on the national budget.
Last Thursday, I spoke at a meeting at the Leas Cliff Hall focused on the importance of cross Channel trade to local businesses. I was interested to hear the strong support from local hoteliers and tourism businesses for our continued EU membership. Tourism, like farming, is a local industry that employs a great many people across a series of small and medium sized businesses, and which relies on the UK having an open and easy trading relationship with the continent.
Last Friday, Academy FM, Folkestone’s community radio station, celebrated its 5th birthday with a party at the Leas Cliff Hall. I’d like to congratulate Dave Sharp and everyone who has worked so hard to make the station such a success. Academy FM, based at the Folkestone Academy school has given many young people the chance to get involved in radio and sound production, and I hope that it will be the first step for some of them in a successful career in the creative industries.
On Saturday last week I was invited by Karen Witter to open her new shop, a dress agency called Inside Out, at 62 The Old High Street, in Folkestone. It is great to see so many businesses now open and thriving in the old town and harbour area, as well a good number of new shops opening up. Karen had previously been one of the businesses in the Folkestone Pop-Up shop in Guildhall Street, that had been created by the Town Team. This is a great example of the value of pop-up shops to give people of experience of running their business in the town centre, and then moving on to a building of their own. I’d like to wish Karen all the best for the success of her business.
