Improving the Economy of Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Economy and Transport – in the Senedd at 2:04 pm on 4 December 2019.

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Photo of Angela Burns Angela Burns Conservative 2:04, 4 December 2019

Thank you for that, but I would like to know how that really translates into action. Last weekend was the Pembroke castle Christmas fair, and it was a great event. Loads of people came into Pembroke to go to the Christmas fair, but as I walked back to my car, which was the other end of Pembroke high street, it really brought home to me yet again the death of that high street. When I first moved to Pembrokeshire some 15 years ago it was a vibrant, busy high street, it had a supermarket there right in the centre of the town, it had lots and lots of individual shops—it had the butcher and practically the baker and the candlestick maker. But now it's just—what do you call those people who do racing bets? Betting shops, that's it—[Interruption.] Bookies. Thank you. I didn't want to mention their name—I can only think of their name. [Laughter.] I wasn't trying to advertise them. [Laughter.] [Interruption.] Thank you. No, don't.

So, it's bookies, it's charity shops, and everything is pretty much boarded up, and I do wonder what we can actually do to bring the kind of life back into that type of high street, because if it's not Pembroke, it's Pembroke Dock, and it's becoming Narberth, which has been a jewel in the Pembrokeshire crown for a long time. Whitland—dead on its feet. St Clears—going the same way. The traditional shops are closing down, but I don't see how these policies of yours can be translated. And I know that the Conservative manifesto is planning to establish a market town fund to help improve the local economy, and I notice that you did mention an initiative to my colleague Russell George, but I just wonder if you could expend on that, because it's desperately sad to see these great towns wither away on the vine.