Rutland and Melton MP Alicia Kearns has begun campaigning for the Department for Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to open an office in Melton Mowbray, home of the pork pie, Stilton cheese and with a fieldsports community at its heart.

She says the move would bring jobs to a town which can boast longstanding food and agricultural heritage and expertise.

As part of the Government’s historic commitment to level up every part of the country, it has pledged to move 22,000 civil servants outside central London by 2030

The East Midlands already suffers from some of the lowest levels of public investment in the country, which Alicia Kearns is committed to changing and ensuring that the region benefit from the Government’s historic pledge to boost growth and prosperity as we recover from the pandemic.

She will put to the Government that Melton Mowbray is the ideal candidate for an office for DEFRA outside London, saying it is the rural capital of food, offering a vibrant and diverse agricultural sector that fees the country as well as being home to a livestock market.

It also benefits from Brooksby Melton Agricultural College, major food production factories and a Food Enterprise Zone, while also being home to world-famous foods including Stilton cheese and Melton Mowbray pork pies.

Alicia said: “Melton is the agricultural backbone of our country and I am determined to generate jobs and prosperity to level up and bring more opportunity to our wonderful town.

“A DEFRA office in Melton is right for our communities, right for our farms, right for our food and drink producers and right for our country. That is why I will work as hard as I can to make this a reality and deliver on my promise to bring investment to our town.”

Melton Mowbray cattle market president Hugh Brown added:

“As the home of the Midlands’ largest livestock market and the ‘rural capital of food’, we really can provide a farm-to-fork environment for joined-up policy development and its real-world impact.”