Supporting High Streets

Gideon Amos Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)]

Like people around the country, my constituents are tired of watching their high streets decline. They are tired of seeing good, local businesses close, replaced by dodgy barbers, vape shops, betting shops, or worse: nothing at all, with the shop left to rot. The decline in our high streets is a political choice that was made knowingly by the Conservative party over 14 years. The Conservatives stripped our local councils of power, defunded them and prevented them from intervening on their own high streets. The Conservatives have brought forward an Opposition day debate on an issue that they themselves powerfully undermined for more than a decade.

I am proud that this Government are taking a different approach. Through the pride in place funding, residents of Cotmanhay in my constituency are receiving £20 million to invest in their community over 10 years. When I met Cotmanhay residents at a community meeting the weekend before last, I was struck by their enthusiasm and general desire to improve our community. Many people in Cotmanhay are brimming with ideas of how to revitalise the area and, for the first time, they are being listened to and given the power to make the changes that they want to see in their area.

I am also pleased that councils will finally be given greater power to say no to fake barbers, vape shops and bookies, which we all know are covers for the drugs industry. Councils will be able to seize boarded-up shops, save derelict pubs and create space for genuine, innovative businesses that will revive our high streets. Strong local government and community empowerment are the best ways that we can revitalise our high streets. Residents ultimately know best what their towns need.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we should also look at the police having the power to close illegal shops and stop them trading immediately, rather than having to take lengthy processes through the courts before they can be closed down?

[Adam Thompson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that very reasonable point, although I think it is probably more a question for the ministerial team than for me.

I am extremely proud to work with Labour-controlled Erewash borough council, which has been taking a lot of firm action recently on our declining high street. Since taking control of the council just two and a half years ago, the Labour council has been tackling absentee landlords and negligent property owners, including those responsible for the decaying Wigfalls building on Bath Street in Ilkeston, which has been decrepit for more than 20 years. The owners have been given a clear choice: invest in their properties, with council support, and show pride in our town centres, or face enforcement through a section 215 clean-up order.

My colleagues on the council have also massively expanded the council’s shop signage grant, offering local businesses up to £2,000 for new signage. The scheme has been extended beyond our immediate local centres—beyond the hubs in Ilkeston and Long Eaton—including Cotmanhay, Kirk Hallam and Sawley. It will help us to brighten our towns and villages and to support small, independent businesses across the borough with direct intervention.

The measures this Government are taking to empower local councils and finally end the scandal of underfunding in councils across the north and the midlands will strengthen the hand of dedicated local authorities such as Erewash and communities such as Cotmanhay in the fight against empty town centres. It is time for us to focus on innovation over stagnation, on the grassroots over national diktat and on pride over neglect. I am deeply proud that this is the Labour Government’s approach.