New group will represent Shropshire town's small businesses

The Craven Arms Small Traders Association held its inaugural meeting Chris Naylor, Lib Dem parliamentary candidate for South Shropshire invited as a special guest. 

“What we are aiming for is a group able to represent the town’s small businesses to other interested parties and organisations,” said Tim Jones, optometrist and owner of Suzanne Floyd Opticians, who had the original idea for a trade organisation.

“It will be a group of local business people discussing their common interests and subjects and representing those to the relevant parties.”

The town’s newsagent, Shaun Morgan, who owns The Paper Shop, was concerned about the lack of affordable homes in the town for young people wishing to settle and work there.

“Housing is desperately needed,” he said.

“The Arms will die if we can’t get young people to come here and raise their families.”

Alison O’Driscoll of Ali Baba unisex hairdressers was concerned too about the state of the verges outside her shop.

All agreed with her that the announcement of the redevelopment of the Craven Arms Hotel to include a bar and apartments should help a lot in bringing people in to shop and enjoy the town’s other amenities.

Also in the discussion was the poor state of roads around the town, especially the problem of very deep potholes.

Chris Naylor, who was previously a borough councillor with responsibility for housing in Camden in Central London, said he was at the meeting in a non-partisan role in order to meet the traders and hear some of their problems.

Mr Naylor moved to All Stretton eight years ago and said that if elected, he would get involved with the problem of housing needs.

The meeting, held at the Discovery Centre, agreed that recruitment of members was a priority. The next meeting will held in January to report on progress.