Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce CEO Paul Britton has sent a letter to Theresa May congratulating her on her return to number 10 Downing Street and as MP for Maidenhead and “wishing the best in maintaining the economic, social and environmental well-being of the Thames Valley region.”
Dear Prime Minister,
On behalf of the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce, our members and the wider business community of the Thames Valley region, we take this opportunity to congratulate you on your return to office as Prime Minister and as MP for Maidenhead.
We wish you, and your new Government, all the very best in maintaining the economic, social and environmental well-being of the United Kingdom and our Thames Valley region.
As you return to 10 Downing Street we make three asks of your new Government and revisit one offer to you. As the region’s accredited Chamber, we ask that you work with us to:
1) create the best possible environment for business investment and growth here in the Thames Valley. As one of the UK’s most successful regions for attracting inward investment, this region is the UK’s true ‘turbo-economy’;
2) secure the firm commitment and right levels of funding to deliver the key infrastructure projects, based here in the region, but of significant importance to the nation’s economic future. Outlined in our policy statement on strategic road/rail infrastructure, these include the 3rd runway at London Heathrow; Western rail access to London Heathrow (WRLtH); expedition of the delivery of the M4 ‘smart’ motorway; capacity and road safety improvements along the A34 (T) road; lifting deferrals to the electrification programme along the Great Western line; delivering the East West Rail project and associated developments, and;
3) secure our international trade future with our European partners – i.e. a pragmatic and comprehensive “business friendly” Brexit deal, coupled with sustained practical support for international trade and investment.
In outlining these asks we support the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) in also offering our help to build a deep and abiding partnership with your Government to deliver sustained economic growth and prosperity, through Brexit and beyond, whilst securing environmental and social well-being for the Thames Valley and the UK. The need for, and emphasis more than ever, on developing a real and deep engagement with the business community is one which we share with the BCC, and many business membership organisations.
As one of our constituency MPs we offer our continued support in helping you proactively engage our business membership and wider business community across the whole Thames Valley. We trust the opportunity to engage with the most senior business leaders and owner-managers, from the broadest range of global HQ’s to innovative small and medium sized-enterprises, will be of great value to you.
We are delighted to re-affirm our earlier invitation for you to attend our next ‘Windsor Debates’ (29th September 2017) and/or ‘Annual Dinner’ (24th November 2017). We welcome every opportunity to help facilitate your own dialogue and engagement with your business community. These are part of a wider and extensive events programme in which you, your Ministers and civil servants may wish to continue to participate, including sector, market and trade-related business roundtables, political working lunches and topic-specific policy related events, such as our BREXIT and related policy roundtables, chaired by Microsoft.
Once again, we extend our very best wishes to you and look forward to a positive, sustained and most productive relationship in championing our unique and truly great Thames Valley economic region and driver of the UK economy.
We look forward to welcoming you to our events; and your Ministers’ involvement in our programme and engaging your Government in helping support our community of businesses located in Maidenhead and across the Thames Valley.
