Crawley Town Centre Has A Bright Future

Queens Square in February 2017

Nothing says more about a town than its centre. It is the place that brings people together from across all its neighbourhoods, as well as from nearby towns and villages. The centre is a town’s heart and will be the part of town that most residents and visitors will know, and rightly or wrongly, it will be the place that determines the view of many people of the town in its entirety. Put simply, town centres matter.

It is well documented how town centres have changed in recent years, most noticeably because of the huge increase in online shopping, which has seen many towns with shop vacancies at over 10%, with the need to diversify to leisure uses and housing as well as retail, in order to keep town centres vibrant and successful. This is something that we have done very well in Crawley as well as being able to attract new retailers to our town centre.

The Conservative Government’s changes to planning laws have enabled town centre office blocks that were empty for many years and would have remained so, to be transformed into new flats. We’re seeing much of this in Crawley and having people living in the town centre is helping to support both the shops and leisure facilities we have.

I have seen Crawley town centre change much over the last 25 years. Much of that change has been positive although not all of it has. I can appreciate that on a cold dreary day in February with all the building work going on in Queens Square, that our town centre will not be looking its best. However, we won’t look back once the months of improvement works are completed later this year.

The town centre also has the new Crawley Museum opening this summer and I am looking forward to the station gateway scheme that will transform the area around Crawley Train Station, including the ugly Overline House building being demolished and replaced with much needed housing.  We still have challenges but I am very confident that Crawley town centre has a bright future ahead.

Welcome Defence Investment In Crawley

I was very pleased to see that part of the £410million RAF military transport contract has been awarded to defence contractor Thales, which has a major site at Manor Royal here in Crawley. This contract is a further boost for our local economy and is further evidence that Crawley continues to prosper after the Brexit vote. This contract is a sign of the Conservative government investing in our Armed Forces, in the UK defence industry and in Crawley. In stark contrast, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour councillors at Crawley Town Hall have an ongoing boycott against the British Defence Industry, including disgracefully against companies here in Crawley.

Defence is one industry where Britain excels on the global stage but there are many others as well as some where our potential is not yet met but where freeing ourselves of the European Union’s shackles will create major global opportunities for us. With the formal triggering of Article 50 due in the next few weeks, these are exciting times for the UK.

While we are leaving the European Union we are not leaving Europe, but we are going to reach out to the rest of the world and so far the signs look excellent. Last week it was announced that New Zealand is very keen to have a free-trade agreement with the UK as soon as possible. I am very confident that this is just a sign of things to come. The United States appears to have changed their position with the new incoming administration no longer relegating the UK to the “back of the queue” when it comes to a trade deal, but moving us to the front.

We have a unique place and position in the world with our unmatched historical and cultural links across the globe, as well the global language being our own. This includes with the growing and emerging countries of the Commonwealth in Africa and Asia such as India. I view the UK as a truly global nation and Crawley’s proximity to London and having Gatwick here makes us very well placed to prosper as Britain booms post-Brexit.
 

Have a Happy and Peaceful Christmas

This week in my Crawley Observer column, I have written about Christmas.
I was struck by the recent passing of Greg Lake, who sadly died on the 7^th of December, just a couple of weeks before Christmas. I wasn’t familiar with his other music but I did know his famous Christmas hit of 1975, I Believe in Father Christmas.  Although this song is often categorised as a Christmas song, this was not his intention. He said that he wrote the song in protest at the commercialisation of Christmas. This was 41 years ago and nowadays I barely hear anyone mention Christmas being too commercialised because it now just seems to be accepted. If anything, the media’s measure of the success of any Christmas seems based on how busy the shops are and how much they sell.

The Christmas build-up is of course a very important time for retailers for which many jobs rely on, but it isn’t the true meaning of Christmas. I was curious to see what the internet makes of Christmas so I did a Google search of the word “Christmas”. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the first entry was Wikipedia which gives the following explanation: “ Christmas or Christmas Day (Old English: Crīstesmæsse, meaning "Christ's Mass") is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed most commonly on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration”.

That sums it up brilliantly and while recognising that cultural and secular themes and traditions have crept into how we celebrate Christmas; I believe that we should never lose sight of what Christmas is really about. Once we think about how Jesus lived his life, the Christmas themes such as giving, sharing, caring, and spreading joy become obvious.

I find myself becoming increasingly grateful each Christmas, because I’m in a warm home in a safe environment, with enough to eat and no major worries. Compared to millions across our world, most of us here are very fortunate so as well as thinking of those less fortunate, I see Christmas as a time to be grateful. I wish all readers of the Crawley Observer a very happy and peaceful Christmas.