Urban Regeneration (England)

Conor McGinn Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered regeneration of towns and cities in England.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Main.

I will use the time allotted to consider some of the issues to do with the regeneration of towns and cities in England. The matter is most vexing for my constituents—and, I suspect from the number of colleagues present, for many others. I will reflect on issues specific to New Ferry, a small town that I represent, but I intend to use the example of New Ferry to discuss wider issues in England.

By way of a caveat, and to help the Minister, I should say that we had a good debate in Westminster Hall in February, before the election; we covered a wide range of town centre issues—parking, business rates, shopping locally and that sort of thing. I do not intend to go over the same ground, with the exception of out-of-town shopping centres. I want to talk about proper regeneration and what happens when a place is deprived and the market fails. I am talking not about making a small shopping centre or retail market work, but about what we do and how we respond when a market has failed and about whether the Government care. Specifically, I want to talk about two things: Government policy on planning and access to capital; and the views of my constituents. I want the Minister to hear how their situation makes them feel.

First is Government policy. Having read through the transcript of the February debate and looked at the evidence, I can only conclude that the national planning policy framework has failed. The “town centre first” approach is not working. An Association of Convenience Stores report tells us that 76% of new retail space is out of town. Did anyone in our country intend that the wonderful town centres that we have all known and grown up with should be gradually shut down in favour of out-of-town retail spaces?

By and large, people have to drive to out-of-town places, which is less healthy and causes more pollution; those people who do not drive or do not have access to a car for whatever reason cannot get there. Did anyone in our country intend for that to happen? I argue that the answer is no. I argue that no one in England thought that it was a good idea for us to sacrifice historic town centres for out-of-town retail. Such retail can be a good thing and work well, but planning policy should ensure that it happens alongside and not instead of town centres. How will the Minister reshape Government policy to change our country’s aspiration, which I honestly think is probably a cross-party one? How will he make that aspiration real and not only words on a piece of paper? As we know from the ACS report, so far that aspiration has failed.

The second part of Government policy that I am extraordinarily concerned about is access to capital. We need to think not only about our successful city and town centres. I am proud to be from Merseyside. Those who are familiar with Liverpool and have visited it down the years know that, some years ago, when I was growing up there, it was possible to wander around and to see many sites left derelict since the second world war. The beautiful buildings were the exception rather than the rule. Thanks to the efforts of the previous Government, that has changed a great deal. There are still gaps and spaces, but things have changed and the city is doing well now. Its population is growing for the first time in my lifetime—more people are now coming to live in Liverpool than are leaving, which is a great success.

What, however, is happening to the peripheral town centres? What is going on outside, in places where businesses cannot make a good argument to invest? Those places are sinking further and faster. We cannot see the same kind of business investment as in Liverpool in towns such as Birkenhead, Ellesmere Port or New Ferry, which I represent. Merseyside has had some success in the centre, but Knowsley, Southport and other places around the city centre are not seeing the same benefit. That is because of market failure—the degradation has been so great that the regeneration needed is too big for the private sector on its own.

[Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend and I share not only the region of Merseyside, but similarities between our constituents and constituencies. St Helens has seen huge cuts to local government, plans for investment in transport shelved, a moratorium on a new police station and now the proposed closure of the court house. Given the points that she has made, does she agree that that denigration of the status of our town discourages business and, most importantly, people?

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. May I ask for interventions to be kept brief? That was more like a mini-speech.