PLAID CYMRU has announced plans to cut taxes for small, independent Welsh businesses.

Economy spokesman Luke Fletcher made the announcement during a wide-ranging speech on the party’s economic plans for government at its conference on Saturday.

“If we want our town centres to thrive, then we need to change how we tax the businesses on our high streets,” he said.

He said a Plaid government would cut business rates for independent businesses in retail, leisure and hospitality and require larger companies to pay more.

Mr Fletcher said companies that can afford to pay more would make the cut cost-neutral.

“An independent store owner on the high street in Aberystwyth pays nearly 10 times more than a major chain on the town’s outskirts,” Mr Fletcher said.

As he outlined in a feature article in Saturday’s Morning Star, Mr Fletcher will be launching “Making Wales Work: Plaid Cymru’s new economic plan” in the next few weeks.

“I am proud of the amount of hard work that has gone into this plan, and the new and ambitious vision for the Welsh economy that it represents,” he said.

“Our plan will see capital built, retained and recycling in our communities, instead of it leaking, and in some cases flooding, out of Wales.”

Mr Fletcher also announced that to support business in Wales, his party in government would create a new National Development Agency.

He said that looking out across the sea from the conference venue we can see the turbines of the Gwynt y Mor offshore wind farm.  

But he said the seabed is owned and leased by the Crown Estate and contributes over £1 billion in annual revenue to the Treasury and royal family.

“We do not own or control enough in Wales of our resources, assets, institutions or businesses to really move the economic dial and that is why Plaid Cymru has led the campaign to see the Crown Estate devolved to Wales,” he said.

Mr Fletcher also pledged to make it easier to convert empty buildings on high streets into homes, claiming this would bring people back into town centres and build footfall for local businesses.

He added: “Ours is a vision of a Wales in which no child grows up poor, where every young person has access to fulfilling work, education or training, and where the economy sustainably meets the needs of our people.”