HIGH Streets across North East Lincolnshire were last night given a boost by the Chancellor George Osborne as he announced a raft of measures to help shops, pubs and small businesses.
Cleethorpes MP Martin Vickers has been waging a long-running campaign calling for help to support the high street.
Only last week he claimed not enough was being done to rejuvenate the "parades of shops up and down the land scarring the communities they once served."
Now the Chancellor has responded to concerns by announcing a package of measures aimed at supporting small businesses in his autumn statement.
Among the measures include plans to give pubs, restaurants and shops with a rateable value over £50,000 a discount of £1,000 on their business rates for the next two years.
The Chancellor has also capped business rate rises across the board at two per cent from April next year and has offered entrepreneurs willing to take on empty shops that have been more than a year a 50 per cent discount on business rates.
Welcoming the measures, Mr Vickers told the Telegraph: "The autumn statement is good news for the high street.
"There are no end of empty retail properties on Freeman Street and also down the road in Cleethorpes.
"Empty shops bring down a community so it will be excellent news if entrepreneurs are now incentivised to breathe new life into that empty retail property."
Mr Vickers claims that up to 10,000 businesses across north East Lincolnshire could benefit from the business rate relief measures announced by the Chancellor.
"The measures that are of particular benefit to my constituents will be the freezing of council tax which the Chancellor has urged all local authorities to do, business rates being capped at two per cent and the discount for those pubs, restaurants and shops with a rateable above £50,000.
"I also welcome the scrapping of National Insurance for young people under the age of 21 which will encourage employers to employ and train young people."
Mr Vickers also welcomed the cancellation of the expected fuel duty rise in April, which will freeze petrol prices.
The Conservative MP is the deputy chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Fair Fuel for Motorists and has been a leading campaigner on the issue.
"I have campaigned on this issue for years which has now been a complete success because every increase expected during this Parliament as put in place by the Labour government has been abandoned."
Among the other measures included in the statement are free school meals for all reception, year one and two primary school students, which will come into effect next September.
The Chancellor also announced a rise in the state pension of £2.95 a week – or £800 a year – from next year.
However he said people would have to wait longer to collect their pension with the retirement age rising to 68 in the mid-2030s and 69 in the mid-1940s.
This is to ensure the retirement age tracks life-expectancy with the expectation that people will still enjoy a third of their life in retirement.
Married couples will also benefit from tax-breaks with couples able to transfer their personal allowance to each other to make a small tax saving.
During his up-beat statement, the Chancellor said Britain was set to be back in the black by 2018/19.
He said his plan was "working", but Labour said he was "in denial" about the "cost of living crisis".
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