Swindon New business Competition, Emma Faramarzi with the overall winner

Enterprise Week ran from Monday 12^th-Friday 16^th November this year. It was a great time for Swindon to boast our achievements. Swindon is the 4th most productive economy in the country and survey conducted this August revealed that Swindon had the biggest growth in new business in the country. In the last 10 years our town has increasingly been seen as the natural home for knowledge based firms and specialised financial services.  

Enterprise Week included a special Women's Enterprise Day. The day was a celebration of women in business. I made it an opportunity to hear about the work and opinions of two women in our community: Emma Faramarzi, the new Chair of the Swindon FSB and owner of Swindon based company Double Click Computing, and Christina Howell, Head of External Affairs for Swindon Chamber of Commerce. Both are women whose valuable contribution is helping Swindon to succeed – I listened to their advice and will act on it.  

Swindon is one of the most important economic powerhouses of the South West, and Britain. The task ahead is to enable everyone in Swindon to share in the town’s success. We all know Swindon has a lot to offer. Businesses are drawn here by our excellent transport links, affordable housing costs and close proximity to the M4 and Heathrow. I am pleased to say that Swindon is now considered to be one of the fastest-growing commercial areas in Europe and is home to a number of large companies including those international brands such as Intel, Zurich Financial Services and Honda.  

And the good news gets better, as Swindon is also benefiting from investments of over £1 billion in regeneration programmes.  The New Swindon Company, formed in 2002, has launched a joint-partnership initiative to focus on seven major areas, aimed at attracting new investors, developers, residents, businesses and visitors to Swindon to ensure the town will become the place of choice for shopping, leisure, work and living. International banks, technology companies and research centres from Germany, India and Sweden have all announced that they will be opening offices in Swindon in the near future. Royal Mail is also relocating its Reading and Gloucester operations to SwindonOn the cultural side, English Heritage recently announced that it will transfer much of its head office from central London to its existing National Monuments Records Office at the Railway Village, while we have the prospect of a new central library, and the Granville Street Development. I am backing these developments.  

Where there are issues small businesses want me to raise with the Government regarding, for example, Business Rates and National Insurance Contributions and Capital Gains Tax – I do so.

I am a candid friend of the Government – and more than prepared to criticise and fight for Swindon business when needed.  

However, despite Swindon’s successes, businesses report to me that Swindon Borough Council needs to take more action to help small businesses. 

I have been told that many small and medium enterprises’ feel that Swindon Borough Council is not transparent, and that issues such as recycling and refuse are often introduced “under the radar” with no accompanying documentation or advice for new or inexperienced business owners. The council has also failed to offer enough consultation regarding disruptive groundwork’s in and around Swindon, and are not addressing the needs of businesses located in the Old Town who are still suffering from loss of trade caused by the closure of critical routes through the area during the years of 2005-2006 and 2007. It’s the same story it’s always been – the Tories are letting us down locally just like they used to let us down nationally. We should never forget that during the early 1990s around 1,000 businesses went bust every week.   

Today, it is thankfully a very different story, and a very different Swindon. And women have played an enormous role in turning our economy around. I am so proud of Labour’s determination to get more and more women in the workplace, and its effects have been far reaching: we now have one of the highest female employment rates of all countries in the EU, with women making up almost half the workforce and 27% of the 3.5 million self employed in the UK. This is all excellent news for Swindon, and I will continue to work for Swindon’s future entrepeneurs. I am determined that the many, not just the few, will continue to benefit from our historic economic stability and growth in Swindon.