Conservative Party Leader Kemi Badenoch visits businesses in East Grinstead

The Leader of the Opposition spoke with several businesses in the town, having arrived at about 3pm in London Road.

She was accompanied by an entourage holding placards featuring slogans like ‘stronger economy, stronger country’ and ‘get Britain working again’.

Mrs Badenoch told this newspaper: “We know that people were disappointed in us in the last General Election and what we want them to know is that this is a new Conservative Party under new leadership. We’ve stopped many of the bad policies, which we had previously that people didn’t like. We know mistakes were made around immigration and taxes and those are the key areas where we’ve made changes.”

Mrs Badenoch’s first stop was Kitchens Bespoke where co-founders Guy and Rachael Workman talked about the challenges facing their businesses during financial downturns and the difficulties caused by over administration when they want to take on new employees.

Afterwards, Mrs Badenoch went into Greenaway Residential Estate Agents & Letting Agents to speak with managing director Darren Greenaway. He talked about the challenges facing estate agents and the housing market, including the minimum wage going up, rising costs, taxes and increased parking charges in town.

Mrs Badenoch voiced concern about how difficult it is for people to buy property, not enough homes being built and people not moving because they are worried about housing taxes.

A discussion with various business owners then took place at The Railway public house where the Conservative Leader also answered questions from PA Media, ITV and GB News.

The group accompanying the Conservative Leader on her visit included East Grinstead and Uckfield MP Mims Davies, Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne and West Sussex County Council Leader Paul Marshall.

Speaking to this newspaper about local issues, Mrs Badenoch said the Conservatives’ would like to abolish stamp duty, adding that their policy would be ‘game changing’ for estate agents in Mid Sussex and for people who wanted to move to the District.

She said: “I’ve been speaking to loads of businesses here in East Grinstead, loads of High Street businesses. Abolishing business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure – if the rateable value is under £110,000 we’d just abolish business rates. High street businesses are struggling and as you can see here it is the life of the community. We want our High Streets to thrive, making sure we do right by many small business.”

Mrs Badenoch also expressed her view that ‘Conservative councils are the best run’. She said: “I’ve always maintained that we have lower taxes and better services than our competitors.”

She continued: “We know that these are very difficult times. We want to keep the cost of living down. I am speaking to my councillors constantly to ask about what we can do on things like parking charges for instance.”

She added: “On top of the plans we have nationally, taking back our streets is something that’s going to have an impact locally as well. We’re going to have 10,000 police officers when we next come back in.”

Mrs Badenoch said she wants to see ‘more police officers and immediate justice’, including making sure that people who spray graffiti clean it up.

She also spoke about the controversial Labour Government proposals to tax inherited farmland, also known as the ‘family farm tax’.

“Farmers are right to be concerned,” she said, adding that she was glad to see the Conservatives ‘forced a partial U-turn’ on the original plan. This was originally to impose a 20 per cent tax on inherited agricultural assets worth more than £1m. In December, the threshold increased to £2.5m.

Mrs Badenoch, whose constituency is North West Essex, said: “I represent a rural area in Essex. The farmers are the stalwarts of the community and I want them to know that I’ve said the Conservatives will completely reverse all of the changes, which Labour brought in.”