COLUMN - Political View with Edward Argar MP

I was extremely pleased that new Melton Borough Council leader, Councillor Ronan Browne, not only listened but has moved fast to agreed to get the work done, and I'm grateful to him and MBC for their positive response to my call for action, and look forward to seeing the work done and an even smarter Melton greeting visitors and shoppers to our town centre.

While only a small step and, collectively, we will need to keep a focus on what mixture of steps are needed to help ensure our town centre thrives in the future.

This past weekend saw visitors descend on the Stockyard and cattle market as Melton welcomed Beef Expo to our town.

Beef Expo is the National Beef Association's biennial celebration of Britain's beef industry, bringing farmers, the industry that supports them, and experts together to showcase all that is great about our beef industry, to discuss the challenges and opportunities it faces, and to highlight the importance of beef farming, and farming more generally to our country, its economy, and to our food security.

It was fitting that this year it was the Rural Capital of Food – our own Melton Mowbray - that hosted the event, and it was a real pleasure to go along to meet the farmers who attended, those hosting trade stands, and the home team from Melton Mowbray Livestock Market.

Events like this are not only nationally important, but also important locally - on many occasions in the Melton Times I have written about the importance of farming, be that in the context of the 'family farm tax', the pressures facing our farmers locally, and the importance of our local farmers to our community and to our country.

With the current uncertainty and instability around the globe, which affects the prices we pay for day to day items like food, compounded by choices made by the government on taxes and regulation, security – including our food security – has rarely been more important.