Following on from the news that 12,000 high street businesses have closed their doors this year, I remain alarmed at how little is actually happening on the ground to help struggling small businesses through the worst recession for decades.

If you strip back the warm rhetoric from the Government we are left with the facts that banks are not lending as they should – they have admitted to building up reserves rather than lending, and the Government just keeps moaning about it in the media. Not good enough.

As if that isn’t bad enough we have a local Council that sees the building of a new shopping centre and cranes towering over Bury as a sign that Bury is booming. Cllr Bibby if you bring your gaze down from the lofty cranes you will see boarded up shops, shops To Let etc all over Bury. The trouble is when the shopping centre is redeveloped will there be any local independent businesses left to be part of it or will it be the usual collection of national chain stores you can find anywhere?

The Government must apply more pressure to get banks lending and at local level we need Councils to stop “living the dream” and get real with the plight of struggling local businesses and do what they can to ensure they get whatever support we can offer them. After all small businesses are the lifeblood of towns like Bury and Bury Conservatives must not forget that.