Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Grant Shapps and Baroness Fullbrook
Lorraine Fullbrook (South Ribble) (Con)
10. What steps his Department is taking to support local high streets.
The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)
I published the Government response to the Portas review on 30 March. We have accepted almost all Mary Portas’s recommendations, and added some of our own.
Lorraine Fullbrook
I am proud to champion Leyland’s bid to be a Portas pilot, which will focus just as much on invigorating community spirit as on invigorating the high street. Does my right hon. Friend agree that local town teams can best support the regeneration of the high street and our town centres through full engagement with every level of the community, as Leyland in my constituency has done?
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There have been a remarkable 371 applications by town teams to become Portas pilots. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her incredible work, which will doubtless be noted in the Leyland Guardian when it is next published, and wish her every success.