High Streets

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the fact that regionally the number varies massively. There has certainly been a huge increase in the number of betting shops in several areas in the past 12 months.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a very compelling argument for giving local councils the power to determine how their high streets develop. One measure that we could introduce is umbrella provisions to enable local councils to stop the clustering of payday lenders or betting shops on the high street.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

Indeed. My hon. Friend makes an excellent point and I will expand on it later.

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[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend, and it is a shame the Government did not accept his amendment. We must keep pressing them to change direction, particularly from where they are attempting to go at the moment, which is complete deregulation.

There are 20% more payday loan shops and 3% more betting shops than a year ago, and I do not think there is huge clamour out there in our communities for any more. Indeed, people want the opposite; they want fewer of those shops because they are taking the place of independent retailers, clothes shops and health food shops.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Is the real point that the growth in payday lenders, bookmakers and takeaways is reducing the vitality and vibrancy of the high street, meaning that fewer shoppers want to go and shop in the retail outlets that remain?

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[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) and to participate in this debate. I regret the partisan tone used by the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) with regard to this important matter and in response to the constructive approach taken by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) towards the real problems faced by communities up and down the country. Back Benchers have taken a more conciliatory approach.

Town centres and our high streets matter: they give us our sense of place, they tell us who we are and they tell us a bit about the history of our communities. People care passionately for them for those reasons. My constituency has lots of little shopping areas and four main shopping town centres. Crownpoint in Denton is the largest shopping centre, followed by Houldsworth square in Reddish, King street in Dukinfield and Haughton Green village. They all face different challenges and have done for the past 25 years or more.

On planning changes, which have been touched on by the hon. Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley), the trend for out-of-town shopping had a catastrophic effect on two of the town centres, namely Denton and King street. It started in the 1980s with the planning free-for-all that led to a large rise in the number of out-of-town shopping centres. The construction of an out-of-town Sainsbury’s in Denton led to a dramatic decrease in town centre trade at Crownpoint, and the construction of a Morrisons in Dukinfield and an Asda in Ashton-under-Lyne—on either side of King street—led to a dramatic decline in trade on the traditional shopping street in Dukinfield.

[Richard Fuller]

Presumably those places were built and have succeeded because that is how people want to shop. It is now very difficult to unbuild them. What is the hon. Gentleman’s answer? Does he want to change the decisions that people make about how and where they shop?

[Andrew Gwynne]

Absolutely not. I was going to make the point that these are long-term trends. We cannot put the genie back in the bottle. However, we cannot get away from the fact that the way in which we shop has changed and one reason for that is the rise in the number of out-of-town shopping centres.

[Mr Binley]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we could have made our town centres much more user-friendly and retail-friendly than they are? I recognise that out-of-town centres are demand driven, but we could have made the retail offer better in our town centres and we have failed to do so.

[Andrew Gwynne]

We absolutely could.

The attempt to put the genie back in the bottle led the previous Government to introduce the sequential test, which meant that town centre retail development was prioritised and only if developments could not be accommodated in the town centre could developers look at edge-of-centre or out-of-centre sites. That was an important change.

The first political campaign that I got involved in as a newly elected councillor in 1996 was against the decision to close Denton post office, which was located on the market square. We lost that battle and Denton post office moved into the Co-op store on the other side of the town centre. Overnight, that market lost 25% of its footfall and it never recovered. Fewer traders came, fewer shoppers came, still fewer traders came and by 2008, the council had to close Denton market.

I am really stating the obvious in saying that shopping habits have changed over the years. My grandparents did a daily food shop. Very few people today have that routine. My parents would do a weekly shop and might have gone to the shops on a daily basis for odds and ends. Today, we buy in bulk. This debate is not just about the rise in internet shopping; the way in which we live our lives has changed fundamentally.

Although I agree with the hon. Member for Northampton South about the impact of planning decisions and about rents and rates, I disagree with him on the role of local government. There is some very good practice out there. I will spend a few minutes talking about two examples in my constituency. Labour-controlled Tameside metropolitan borough council has established town teams in its five main town centres of Ashton-under-Lyne, Denton, Droylsden, Hyde and Stalybridge. Those are not Portas pilots, but were established on the initiative of the council. They are all different in their make-up and have different priorities for their town centres.

I suppose that I should declare an interest as a proud member of the Denton town team. We have developed a vision for Denton that is unique to Denton. We have organised some town team events. We had a party in Victoria park over the summer to celebrate the centenary of that fine piece of civic open space, we are holding an Oktoberfest this month and we have started to organise the Christmas lights and events for the town centre.

More importantly, the town team has led an initiative to create a new pop-up shop in Denton town centre. We had a “Dragons’ Den”-style competition to design and build a new modular shop. Bill Jennings, the chair of the Denton town team, has worked with the council and the local college on that competition. The winning entry has been built and the planning permission has been granted for a piece of wasteland opposite what used to be Denton’s market square. The new pop-up shop will be a confectioners where one can buy traditional sweets out of a jar, such as a quarter—I still use old money—of midget gems. Those are the initiatives being led by Denton town team.

The issue is not only about occupancy rates, however, and my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham is right about the over-concentration of uses, as that changes the vibrancy and vitality of our shopping streets. In Denton, the problem is less one of payday lenders and bookmakers than of takeaways. Takeaways are great, and in the evening the main street is thriving and vibrant. During the day, however, the shutters are down, which gives an impression that Denton in the day time is closed for business. We must consider how to deal with that.

In my final minute I want to talk about the Stockport part of my constituency. Stockport is a Portas pilot town, but the part I represent—Reddish—is concerned that it might be overlooked because of the concentration on Stockport town centre. In partnership with businesses in Reddish, town councillors have established the Reddish business forum. That is a different approach from the one taken by the Tameside part of my constituency, but it is having a big impact. Businesses are driving changes to the high street around Houldsworth square in Reddish so that they do not get left behind. They have organised a fantastic arts festival—ReddFest—which has been running for three years, and they have held markets and community events on Houldsworth square. It is working; that is best practice—local government working with business for local communities. Those local communities have the answers and we must trust them to deliver. That is why I commend the contribution made by those on the Labour Front Bench. This is about empowering our local communities to do the right thing for our town centres.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

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[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The answer to the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) about how to pay for business rates is to grow the economy. If he listens to what retailers and other businesses are saying, he will also know that business rates are at the top of their list of problems, which is why what is said in the motion moved by the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods), is the right thing to do.

I want to talk about the retailers in the three town centres in my constituency, in Formby, Crosby and Maghull. Like others, we have enthusiastic and energetic local retailers who are committed to their local communities and work incredibly hard. Many of them do an excellent job and run superb businesses, but they are desperate for improvements to be made to our town centres and desperate for the kind of support that we have been discussing today to be given sooner rather than later. They want to take advantage of the opportunities that are available, not just to deal with the challenges they face.

We have talked a lot today about those challenges and some of the difficulties. The three high streets that I represent face similar challenges, albeit with slightly different issues. The town of Maghull has a small supermarket with a parade of shops—people have to cross the road to get to the main part of the town centre—and has the second part of the Portas funding, backed up by funding from the local council. Crosby also has funding from round two of the Portas pilot, which is backed by the local council as well. In Maghull the town council has got involved—it has tried to use pop-up shops—but recognises that this is only a short-term fix.

I have to say to the Minister—or I would have, but he is no longer in the Chamber—that car parking is not the issue in the town centres that I represent. People are going to out-of-town shopping centres for a number of reasons, not least the convenience of being able to buy everything under one roof, so whether we have car parking charges or not is somewhat irrelevant. I also thought it was odd that he said it was okay for privately owned car parks to charge for parking, but not for councils to do the same.

Crosby has a similar issue to Maghull’s with empty units. Other Members have mentioned the number of charity shops, which is a particular issue in Formby, which has something like 14 charity shops. Some of them sell the same, new goods as other traders, but they do not compete on a level playing field, because the cost base for charity shops is much lower, as they pay only 20% of business rates and are staffed by volunteers. I do not wish to criticise charities and their need to raise funds, but that is a real issue.

All three town centres in my constituency share similar problems, but they also have opportunities. Formby and Crosby are half a mile from the beach and have opportunities to attract the many visitors to the area, particularly in the summer. Crosby has the famous “Another Place” statues by Antony Gormley on the beach. People come to visit the statues, but they do not know where to go afterwards.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Is that not precisely the reason why we should trust local communities to develop their own visions for their own town centres? Each town centre is unique and will have a different answer to how to revitalise the community.

[Bill Esterson]

My hon. Friend has linked the two points. We need to trust local communities to come up with answers, because they all have different opportunities. I have mentioned the opportunity to link the beach and the visitor economy to support the high streets in Formby and Crosby, but equally—this has come out a number of times—local people do not want more legal loan sharks, bookies or fast-food takeaways taking over at every available opportunity. They want to see high-quality retailers encouraged into high streets and to support good local traders, not necessarily payday loan companies, bookmakers or fast-food takeaways when there are too many of them.

We have some good businesses, as I have said. Each of the three areas is underpinned by a medium-sized supermarket. However, even having a supermarket in the town centre is no guarantee of support for other traders, because people tend to do all their shopping under the one roof, so whether it is out of town or not, the resulting problem seems to be similar.

I have been asking businesses in my communities what they want. Dealing with business rates was top of the agenda, but the second item was economic growth linked to the cost of living. An energy price freeze and regulation of the energy market—another flagship Labour policy—are exactly what retailers and businesses want to see, because energy represents one of their biggest costs.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend said that business rates were a factor for his businesses. Is it not part of the problem that no business rate revaluation has taken place and that many of those businesses are still considered to be in prime shopping areas, when in fact those areas are anything but that?