SHOPPING streets in towns across Surrey are set to benefit from a new £3million fund launched by the county council. The authority is making up to £750,000 available annually for boroughs and districts to improve ‘secondary’ shopping centres.

These include retail areas beyond the centres of large towns or shopping streets in smaller places.

A project to improve Leatherhead’s Church Street is the first to benefit with £200,000 to improve paving and lighting as well as install seats and plant trees. The news comes after council leader David Hodge unveiled a scheme whic allows traders and community groups to bid for a share of £250,000 annually over the next four years to spruce up village centres and shopping parades.

It also comes after the county pledged funding – estimated at £58 million – for the commercial element of the Brightwells regeneration scheme in Farnham.

Council deputy leader Peter Martin said: “Local bus-inesses and shops are the lifeblood of every community so hopefully this planned scheme will be the first of many we support in towns the length and breadth of Surrey.

While money’s tight because of rising demand for services such as adult social care, there are still plenty of smaller things that we can do that make a big difference to people’s daily lives – and schemes like this benefit both traders and shoppers as well as the local economy.”