One of the defining characteristics of the area I represent is the number of small enterprises.
We have very few large private employers to rely on for the bulk of our jobs. Any business employing more than 50 people is a rarity in comparison to other, more urban, parts of the UK.
I’ve always been mindful of that as your MP and also during my time in Government, particularly during the Covid years when I endeavoured to come up with support schemes that worked for businesses large and small.
I have enormous respect for small businesses and the people who create and run them who, in most instances, gave up the security of regular monthly pay working for somebody else to pursue an idea, a passion, a dream to create their own enterprise.
It’s a world I was familiar with before I became an MP and I have always spent time with small businesses. They always inspire me.
Two local businesses I’ve visited recently really impressed. They are very different but they embody everything that is great about the businesses that are the backbone of our local economy.
At Sashless Windows, I saw a company that grew from an idea picked up in Canada more than sixty years ago.
Founder Walter Chown came across a primitive form of double glazing and brought the concept back to Northallerton and established a business to serve the UK market.
Today, the company is run by the third generation of the Chown family and serves a quality niche in the very competitive market for double glazed windows. Their timber windows can be found in heritage homes and social housing projects across the UK.
Sashless is a great example of how a small business can compete effectively against much bigger companies and can adapt and survive the ups and downs experienced by the housing market over more than half a century.
A very different business is the Easby Loop Café run by Nic Perks who I first met four years ago when he was a keen business studies student at Richmond School.
Since leaving school, he trained as a chef and wasted little time in setting up his own enterprise – a café in a catering van unit in the shadow of the ruins of Easby Abbey just outside Richmond.
What I admired about Nic was him seeing the potential of the location on the ever-popular walk (one of my family’s favourites) from the abbey to The Station and his passion and enthusiasm for making the business a success.
I don’t doubt that as a young man there will have been people who cautioned against him taking this big step. But he’s been brave and all the signs are he will be rewarded. His Google reviews are spectacularly good.
Both these businesses are great examples of what makes our local economy tick. Behind them are committed, hard-working people. I’ll continue to support them and the many other small enterprises that encapsulate what makes our part of North Yorkshire special.
