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A Council is supposed to act in the best interests of its residents and the businesses in its area. So, I had hoped that I would receive assistance from Havant Borough Council as part of its remit is to help business in the Borough.
I wrote to the obvious people, Richard Taylor, Business Liaison Officer and Christine Dier, Tourism Manager.
Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a great deal of support or help in Havant, despite my esoteric side, particularly Lorelei, being of great value to the Borough and the region. As pointed out elsewhere in my Web Sites, it is considered on high business authority to be worth at least ten percent extra on local tourism. That amounts to over to £10M per year for Havant, £35M for Portsmouth, £10M for Chichester and so on.
Applying relevant percentages to the affected areas, which come into the story, from Dorset through Hampshire, Sussex, Surrey, Oxfordshire and Essex to the mid-Rhine in Germany this rises to hundreds of millions of Pounds per annum.
Hopefully that situation will change eventually, particularly for the sake of the businesses in the area and the employment, jobs, which depend on them.
At the moment, however, it looks as if I will have to go back to organisations outside not just Havant but Hampshire as well for business assistance.
One
of the items listed under "A
Conservative Vision for the Borough" on the Local Conservative
Party Web Site is:
"We will continue to create opportunities for growing industries
and budding entrepreneurs."
The page ends with a note from Councillor David Gillett, Leader of Havant
Borough Council.
I am a "budding entrepreneur" and worth a fortune to the Borough
in the biggest industry in the world, Tourism. I would very much like
assistance to bring business to the Borough and elsewhere quickly, rather
than have to continue through the "out and back" exercise
via another County on which I have had to embark.
The above Conservative Web Site, to which I have referred, is an On-Line
Version of "In Touch", the local Party Magazine for Residents.
I would very much like my Councillors to get in touch with me and assist
me to bring business to the Borough.
I would also like to revive my engineering interests in that respect, instead of having to mostly go outside Hampshire, certainly outside Havant, on those matters as well.
I live
in St Faith's Ward, Havant. The Councillors for St Faith's (all from
the Conservative Party) are Councillor June Fulcher, Councillor Ray
Bolton and Councillor David Guest.
I suppose it is a matter of, "Watch this space".
Despite all of the above, developments do occur, though nothing like as quickly as they would if advertised local business assistance was real.
In particular there was some movement, from May 2004 onwards.
Fortunately, this is still continuing; not as quickly as I would wish, though there does seem, feel, a certain inevitability about it all.
However, virtually all of these developments have been as the result of contacts with, and working with, people outside Hampshire.