Town Deals: Covid-19 Recovery

Damien Moore Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Town Deals and covid-19 recovery

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell.

For too long, towns across the country have been in decline. Once bustling with shoppers and visitors, they have become blighted by high levels of deprivation, a lack of opportunity, and empty shops, leaving a chasm, where there was once aspiration, for entire communities, particularly across the north of England. That is why I welcome the Government’s commitment to levelling up and unleashing the economic potential of towns across the country.

In the course of this Parliament, the towns fund will invest £3.6 billion across our country in communities such as Southport, Barrow-in-Furness, Blackpool, Norwich, Darlington and many more. It will help to reshape and unleash the economic potential of 101 towns through regeneration, connectivity, skills and culture. This funding also includes the future high streets fund, which aims to renew town centres and high streets to make them more attractive places to visit, thereby increasing footfall, driving growth and supporting local businesses. That is exactly what Lord Street, in my constituency, and other parts of Southport need.

The pandemic has kept people away from the high street. Although more people shopping online is nothing new, restaurants have also adapted to a new model of working. People are eating takeaways and restaurant meals at home and they are shopping online. As convenient as that is, and as good as the hospitality sector in Southport has been at adapting, there is a real fear that hospitality and retail will suffer as we come out of the pandemic, because people’s shopping and leisure habits will have changed remarkably. In tourist economies such as Southport, that is not an insignificant thing. That is why we need to think differently about town centres and make them a destination, thereby giving people a real reason not only to visit but to spend money and to make return visits.

Town deals provide a meaningful avenue to rebuild many communities across the country as we emerge from the pandemic. That is why I very much welcome the bid submitted by my constituency: it has the potential to drive forward growth and investment and to create opportunity. I want to illustrate the benefits of the towns fund by informing hon. Members about how it will benefit Southport.

Let me explain for those who may be unfamiliar with my constituency that Southport is a coastal town in the north of England with a large tourism and hospitality sector. Its high street, Lord Street, was the inspiration behind the tree-lined boulevards of Paris today, including the Champs-Élysées. Today, however, Southport faces many of the issues that sadly are common in many northern towns that have missed out on decades of regeneration. Those who come to Southport will see the grandeur of what it once was, but sadly with a rising number of empty shops and marred by an increasing number of takeaways and vaping shops. We have improvements in educational standards, large-scale investment coming in and hundreds of new homes being built, but the town centre, like others across the country, looks like it needs support.

We started with £1 million of accelerated funding for shovel-ready projects: £900,000 was used to rejuvenate the market hall as a state-of-the-art facility with an innovative approach to dining—it opens next week—and a further £100,000 to create a “boulevard of light” on Lord Street. That, combined with securing a £37.5 million investment in my town overall, is allowing us to unlock our economic potential.

I pay tribute to Rob Fletcher, chair of the Southport town deal board, and to all those who have served on it, including the council executive member and officers, local businesses, leaders in health and education, and the consultant Turley. I also serve on the board, and that is what makes the towns fund different: not only do the Government believe in the economic potential of these towns, but Members have been invited to be directly involved with the projects and personally associated with the submissions. Together with stakeholders across my constituency, I have lobbied and supported the bid from day one.

The funding will see £30 million invested to create a new theatre, conference and eventing centre on the waterfront and a business incubator space, bringing highly skilled, highly paid jobs back to our town centre. The Southport town deal bid will help our town rebuild its reputation as the premier tourist destination of the north-west and allow us to attract millions of new visitors and business delegates. It has the potential to unlock £350 million of investment in our local economy. That is why the towns fund is so important. It is not just a spend; it is a true investment.

Key to the success of the deal is the private sector contributing many more millions into the local economy. Although I welcome Southport’s receiving such significant investment, town deals alone cannot solve the problem of dwindling town centres. Towns must change. I would like to say three things about that, and I shall say them very briefly as I know others wish to speak.

First, I want to raise with the Minister the issue of business rates, which are a significant barrier to businesses, particularly small businesses, in my constituency. Many of the buildings that stand empty in Southport today are large heritage buildings that are too big and too expensive to maintain; many businesses simply cannot afford the rising costs associated with their upkeep. If town centres are to resemble anything like what they once were, or even to adapt to the new normal, the Government must overhaul the business rates system and make it easy for businesses to open up in town centres. That would help to reward innovation and risk.

Secondly, I want briefly to mention parking charges. Local authorities have a role to play in creating change, encouraging investment and bringing people back to our town centres. It is extraordinary that, in this day and age, councils still take a short-sighted approach to parking. Local residents cannot travel into their own town centres and support small businesses without facing exorbitant charges or receiving penalties. They should be able to do so. Local authorities, including Sefton Council, should enable that to happen as soon as possible. They should incentivise shopping, as they do in many other towns—for example, Lytham, across the Ribble estuary, provides a period of free parking. My constituents want the same.

Thirdly, connectivity has a huge role to play in ensuring that towns can attract a greater number of visitors. That gives me an opportunity to once again raise with the Minister two important pieces of rail infrastructure that are critical if the Government are serious, as I believe they are, about levelling up towns across the country: the maintenance of a direct rail service to Manchester Piccadilly and the reopening of the Burscough curves, connecting my town with the northern corridor via Preston. If our economy is to bounce back strongly, the Government need to do more to ensure that towns, particularly coastal towns, are not disconnected from major rail networks. Connecting my constituency to Manchester and Preston is just as important to levelling up as are faster trains to London.

I recognise that, over the last year and a half, the Government have spent a total of £400 billion on measures to help our economy recover from the pandemic. In particular, I welcome the levelling-up fund, the furlough scheme, the business rates holiday, bounce back loans, new recovery loans, the self-employment income support scheme and the cut to VAT—and who in the tourism and hospitality sector could forget the eat out to help out scheme, which was a real lifeline for many constituents and businesses in Southport?

I have reason to be optimistic for Southport as we emerge from the pandemic. We have submitted a bid to the restoring your railway fund to reopen the Burscough curves. The major department store Beales has announced that it will return to our high street in August, its third reopening after those in Poole and Peterborough. Southport will get its own version of the London Eye, thanks to Pleasureland owner Norman Wallis. I look forward to Southport Cove being built and the £40 million investment it will bring and the jobs it will create. Despite not being in Manchester, it was ranked among the 15 projects to look forward to in Manchester by the Manchester Evening News. Our £37.5 million town deal, the second largest allocation in the country, is a testament to how right they are and to how much town deals can drive growth and investment. The Government are laying the foundations that will improve the chances for many in the future.

The Government are unlocking the full potential of towns and communities by giving them the support that they need to thrive. Given that the fund was announced at a time when the Government were tackling an unprecedented health crisis, that is particularly welcome. Some might have been forgiven for saying that the Government should have paused or slowed down and focused on the pandemic. Others might have encouraged a complete cessation of the deal. The Government have been giving hope and optimism to places such as Southport by helping communities build back better as we overcome the pandemic.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damien Moore]

I thank all Members for their participation in the debate today, which shows how much they want the best for their constituents. The tone of the debate has been passionate but polite, which is always the best way to conduct affairs on such issues. I would like to go through a few points made by hon. Members.

The first is from the hon. Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe) who talked about the scrutiny and political imbalance in the judgment of where the town deals have been based. I, like anyone, will look at how we make decisions. I am certainly interested in the decision of my local Labour authority—which has three parliamentary constituencies, two Labour and one Conservative—to put levelling-up bids in only for the two Labour ones and to forget about the Conservative one.

My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) is absolutely right—private landlords who own so many of the buildings on our high streets and in our towns have a massive part to play in this. They have to show that they want to see the best for our towns and our communities as well. I have not forgotten about Red Rum, by the way. There is a huge mural to Red Rum overlooking the waterfront area, so every visitor is reminded of Red Rum’s history in our town.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) gives us a constant reminder of how important it is to make sure we support the whole of the United Kingdom. I am a bit envious of the fact that if I lived in his constituency I would get a pre-paid voucher to go spending on the high street. I think that I would probably spend a bit more than £100, which is the entire idea behind the scheme.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) was absolutely right when he talked about towns being left behind for too long. We are fed up with the ripple effect that if we throw money into a city, the towns at the edge will get some of it. We need to start investing in our towns. That is exactly what our town did in Southport, and it has done what it says on the tin. It has brought and is bringing in private investment week by week into my town. Not Government money; the Government money has been the stimulus for the £350 million.

Shops are reopening again on our high streets. Big department stores reopening, for example, is a real testament to how much how much enthusiasm is around it. I would say that we have already delivered two projects, the first being the boulevard of light which was delivered months ago, and the second being the Market Hall reopening next week, so if you want a fantastic dining experience, please come to Southport. The hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) is only a train ride away still, and I would welcome him to come and see how fantastic that is. Finally, I would say that our towns do have a future, but it is our duty, our responsibility to make them stronger.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Town Deals and covid-19 recovery.