'Ashfield is the place to be'

As part of your Chad’s newest campaign, ‘Putting Ashfield on the map,’ which aims to promote regeneration in the district, we asked local business people what the areas future could look like.

Russell Jones, partner at Hopkins Solicitors LLP and also chairman of Mansfield and Ashfield 2020 business club, said he can see a ‘positive change’ in Ashfield.

He said:“We would support a continued growth campaign for attracting new business and investment into the area.

“We recently opened our office in Ashfield because we can see the whole area changing, and it has been a really positive experience.

“We would like to see continued funding to change the established view that is wrongly held that Ashfield is somehow somewhere not to be proud of.

“Part of that is the change we can see in the skills of the local people. We now have schools, colleges and now a university that all want to assist businesses by producing employees with skills that are focused on their future lives both in soft and hard skills which help make the whole area a better place to work in and live in.

“We are proud to support numerous businesses and companies in the area. They tell us it is the place to be and that there is a definite change in the air for how Ashfield is perceived by local people and others coming into the area.

“Nowhere is ever perfect but we can see a positive change and more and more people are saying what’s good about the area rather than what is bad.”

Charles Cannon, who is the director of Ransom Wood Estates UK Ltd, said that the district should be looking to ‘hi-tech, clean industries’ in the future.

He said: “We mustn’t sell ourselves short by accepting more dirty industries and low quality employers into our midst.

“We should be looking to hi-tech, clean industries which will help up-skill our communities.

“We are also very aware that Brexit was never going to make things immediately easy but our independent spirit is what keeps us going.

“For too long we have been the housing estate for Nottingham and throttled by lack of investment in our local rail service to the North and West.

“It’s time we saw quality infrastructural investment and a calm, measured approach to development, where our villages are allowed to connect with, rather than be consumed by, an urban sprawl and where our sense of community isn’t throttled by the misused term, urbanisation.”

Have your say on our survey, visit http://bit.ly/2D8AYr0