Growth in all areas is vital for our future

THE King’s Speech at the opening of Parliament was full of it. Full of plans for growth, no less than six times the King used the word growth... ‘My government will work to achieve growth...’

One of the most needed ‘growths’ here in the rural South West is growth in the community-owned bus. Just like the community-owned shop, we have need for the publicly owned bus service – so the lack of a car, or the expense of using a car to get families to the big shop to buy a packet of nails and their favourite breakfast cereal does not cost petrol and parking costs.

Then there’s the need for a growth in housing, for a rent that can be afforded... this borders on the critical. When I was a first-time buyer in 1962 my mortgage was three times my salary and I biked to the rail station to save the bus fare. Today’s mortgages require up to eight times salary plus a saved deposit, running into tens of thousands.

Then there’s growth needed in the number of skilled medical people, from doctors and dentists to nurses and medical ancillaries. It’s estimated that by 2030, one in every six people on the planet will be over 65 – and medical science continues to increase life expectancy.

In 2021 there were almost 1.2 million unpaid carers aged 65 years and over in England and Wales, just over one in 10 of the older population, with almost half of these providing more than 50 hours of unpaid care a week. Many of them are caring for young grandchildren, so both parents can work and meet the huge mortgage payments.

Census 2021 results show the population of England and Wales has continued to age – the number of people aged 65 and over increased from 9.2 million in 2011 to over 11 million in 2021 and the proportion of people aged 65 years and over rose from 16.4% to 18.6%, so the need to grow the economy is obvious.

Growing our sources and resources of renewable power is a must for this Government. Nearly all our offshore wind power is foreign owned. We need to grow our own Great British power and the prevailing ‘nimby’ approach of many people must change. No one objected to the location of coalmines and the lot of coalminers 150 years ago, as coal was not in the back yard of the West Country – it was in Wales, Derbyshire and Yorkshire. Now wind power is in the coastal areas of England and coal and oil and gas is going to be a thing of the past.