Campaigning to improve the town centre: Slough Lib Dems take up the challenge from Windsor's Lord Fox

Matthew Taylor and Robert Plimmer took up the challenge Windsor's Lord Chris Fox issued to all Lib Dem groups to campaign for improvements to their town centres.

The challenge came as Lord Fox, the Lib Dem's parliamentary spokesperson for Business, Enterprise and Industrial Strategy, spoke at the end of the Lib Dem conference debate on Sunday on a policy motion: Town Centres Fit for the Future.

The Lib Dems adopted a comprehensive policy stressing that local and national governments have a vital role to ensure town centres thrive. Some key elements include:

• central government should reform commercial planning law to enable Councils to ensure commercial space is used flexibly and efficiently;
• central government should help finance the transformation of town centres by expanding the "Future High Streets Fund" so that it can cover more areas;
• reaffirmation of the 2018 Lib Dem policy calling on the Government to replace the business rates.

The Lib Dem motion also recognises that of course each town centre/High Street has a unique context, and that in addition to national policies and strategies, there will always be specific local issues to address. Matthew Taylor and Robert Plimmer promise that if the Lib Dems had a say on the Slough Council they would use their expertise to challenge the way Slough's Labour-run Council have made the national challenges facing the High Street worse by the delays in the Heart of Slough project.

The photo shows Matthew Taylor and Robert Plimmer highlighting the problems of closed shops on Slough High Street.