THE trading community will have a new voice in 2008 when the Marlborough Retail Forum is launched.
The Retail Forum will be a dedicated event for the town's retailers to meet and tackle the issues that matter to them.
It is being launched by Marlborough Chamber of Commerce, with an inaugural meeting proposed for February.
Peter Davison, president of Marlborough Chamber of Commerce, said: "Long and inflexible working hours mean that Marlborough's independent traders struggle to attend the breakfast, lunch or early evening meetings that the chamber runs.
"Meanwhile networking opportunities, an area in which the chamber has been tremendously successful, are of less relevance to traders than it is to those in service professions.
"The forum will be an opportunity for retailers to discuss and tackle the issues that effect them directly like CCTV provision, Spirit of Christmas, Marlborough in Bloom or parking charges. The chamber will facilitate meetings and lend its lobbying powers, but the agenda will be set very much by the traders themselves."
The first meeting, to be held on a date to be confirmed in February, will look at the issue of a Storenet and CCTV scheme for Marlborough.
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