SMALL and medium-sized businesses are the lifeblood of the constituency.

Many faced a challenging time during the Covid pandemic and subsequently with escalating energy costs and the knock-on effects from the global economic situation we are facing.

I had a frank discussion centred on these issues with many local businesses at a meeting with the Taunton Chamber of Commerce recently.

I was pleased to share details of the new support for business announced in the Autumn Statement, worth £13.6billion over the next five years. The package was well received by the chamber, and they are sharing the full details with members.

On Saturday I was out in Wellington visiting local traders to celebrate #SmallBusinessSaturday, an annual campaign encouraging communities to support local small businesses.

I did manage to do a bit of Christmas shopping at the same time and would encourage everyone to support local shops where you can. Travel around the area will certainly be helped in the Taunton area by the £1 single bus fare just introduced.

Much development is at last progressing in Taunton much of which I have played my part in securing funds for from government.

Much of this planning work was achieved under the previous council and the development projects are finally coming to fruition.

This includes the Firepool Development and the new digital innovation hub which will soon be completed. It is a state of the art, energy efficient building which will be invaluable for new start-ups. I attracted £5million for this project working with stakeholders and the Local Enterprise Partnership.

Finally, I was delighted as the Environment Minister to be involved in bringing forward the new measure that will see fines for water pollution incidents being directed towards schemes to benefit the natural environment and water quality instead of going to Treasury as is the case at the moment.

This will be a real benefit to the natural world. The tree planted In the Taunton Children’s Wood for National Tree Week last week will in its own small way help add to nature too.

I launched this wood back in 1992 when I was the environment correspondent at HTV - it is wonderful to see how it has matured.