Protecting communities

One challenge facing all MPs is to work out how best to focus your time.

Understandably, constituents expect you to be knowledgeable on virtually every aspect of policy and to grasp most local issues, so the temptation is to spread yourself too thinly — the art is to specialise as much as you can so that you can make a real difference in key areas.

Locally, I have tended to focus on trying to support our rural communities which is often not so much about winning extra resources as keeping threats at bay.

For example, I put a lot of effort into trying to head off over-development in Okehampton.

More recently, I have challenged the proposed arrival of a 4,000 sq ft supermarket on the outskirts of Ashburton — a community that like Okey has some of the country's finest town centre traders at its heart.

My concern with this proposed supermarket is that like so many developments of this kind there is a significant risk that business will be pulled out of the town centre and traders will suffer as a result.

Indeed, as part of their planning application the applicant states that the new supermarket will reduce trade at one town centre store by 14% — a large figure that (given the high overheads in retailing) would translate into a considerably larger percentage drop in profits.

Whilst I will continue to fight this application hard my position on this issue is not universally popular — one local resident wrote to me to argue that as a Conservative I should welcome competition.

Generally I do — when it works well competition drives down costs and improves quality and choice — but when it threatens rather than supports a community then that is where I draw the line.