Wiltshire’s leading business organisation has given a cautious welcome to the Autumn Statement.

The Chancellor claimed that his proposal for increases in taxation and cuts in public spending were designed to ensure that a recession would be shorter and shallow than it would otherwise be.

The Wiltshire Chamber of Commerce, Business West said: “The statement brings us back from the brink of the sharp rises in interest rates and damage to confidence we saw from the mini-budget. The sombre tone of both the Chancellor and the backbenches reflected this.

“There were also small glimmers of light in slightly better projections for growth from the OBR compared to the Bank of England.

"This, and a change to the government’s fiscal rules, means that the government avoids what would have been a damaging return to budget consolidation in the middle of a recession.”

But the organisation was more pessimistic looking further forward and said: “Many of the hard choices were postponed, not avoided.”

Business West was also unhappy that Wiltshire had been ignored in the package and added: “Disappointingly, there was almost no mention of our region in plans for specifically targeted boosts to local growth.”

Individual Wiltshire businesses did not find much comfort in the Statement.

The owner of Lacock Bakery in Chippenham Jean Sheard said:

“My view is that they haven’t thought about the businesses. Small businesses are going to struggle, and I think we need another statement to come out to actually tell us how we are going to fare.

“They haven’t considered us at all. They’ve made it much more difficult for us to survive and I just hope we will. We’ve been here for thirty years, and I hope we’ll last another thirty years but it’s going to make it very very difficult.

“We moved in here in a recession in 1991. We struggled for five years but we came out of it. We’re going to have another jolly good try to survive this one but it’s not going to be easy.”

The owner of Ady’s Barbershop in Devizes, Adrn Adrn said: “It’s not too bad at the moment but it’s not brilliant, especially at this time in the year. Everyone just wants to pay the bills before they think about a haircut, but you can’t do anything.

“People use to come every four weeks or so but now they come once every five or six. Prices are up for everything too.”