High Streets (Designation, Review and Improvement Plan) Bill

Jack Brereton Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 26th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

They say that first impressions count. Often for our towns, the first impression that visitors will consciously draw is of the high street. Certainly, it is the high street that most often leaves the lasting impression of what a town is all about. It is key to the town’s character.

Strikingly, 72% of British adults surveyed by Nationwide Building Society went as far as saying that they judged the vitality of an area as a whole based on the high street alone. Some high streets are beautiful and thriving places, and there will be lessons to learn from them, but even some of those will be struggling against retail trends, not least in banking. That was the point of Nationwide’s survey, because it makes much of its commitment to maintaining a local branch network. Its marketing strategy is an informed one: 71% of people told Nationwide that they still feel that their own local high street is an important part of the community. However, 67% said that theirs had declined, with 62% saying that it had been neglected; 54% said that their high street has insufficient variety, and only 38% said that their local high street adequately fulfils their shopping requirements. More than a fifth—21%—would go as far as describing their local high street as a generally unpleasant place in which to shop. That is deeply disappointing, not least because these findings are from a January 2020 survey, almost immediately prior to the covid lockdowns and all the challenges that have come since, including post-pandemic inflation and Putin’s illegal war against Ukraine.

However disappointing the findings, they will not come as any great surprise to Members across the House. The state of our high streets is an issue that exercises us all, and is regularly raised by our constituents following the incessant move online and out of town. None the less, it will depress us all that the single most common word chosen to describe local high streets —and the only word picked by more than a fifth of respondents—was “sad”. The second-place word was “bleak”. This is not presented as a word cloud, but it is easily imaginable as one. The third most common word chosen by respondents when describing their local high street was “indifferent”. That is clearly not where we want to be, because the unique and localised character of our high street plays such a key role in defining the vitality of the surrounding wider communities. Nor does it give confidence to those wanting to visit or thinking of investing in our high street.

Fortunately, the survey results were not just a list of gripes. The survey went on to ask what people thought could be done constructively to improve things for the high street. The five key improvements that people want are: fewer empty shops, more big-name shops, more greenery, less litter, and better decorated shopfronts and signs.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I certainly recognise the picture that the hon. Member is painting. In Bristol we have 47 high streets and local centres. Some are thriving, but it has been very difficult to revitalise others. Bristol City Council has been very active, and some of the things he mentioned are within the council’s control, but others are down to the market. On addressing the empty shops, will he talk about what tools councils could use that would not cost huge amounts of money, to ensure that high streets can thrive in the way he would like?

[Jack Brereton]

I agree entirely that this is not just about local authorities. They play an integral and important role, but there are multiple stakeholders and partners —communities, businesses and property owners—that also play an important role. The importance of the Bill is in providing vision and focus through local authorities bringing together people and stakeholders in our high streets to come up with a plan of action to deal with some of these issues.

We must always pause to wonder whether a list of apparently quick and easy wins is indeed quick, easy and affordable to deliver. “Easier said than done” is often the narrative, but I fear that this has become an excuse for those who are avoiding taking difficult decisions and necessary action. Many of our high streets—for example, Market Street in Longton, a once bustling high street with many heritage buildings of iconic character—are now in a sorry state. Many owners are absent and take little or no responsibility for their property, in some cases deliberately allowing it to become derelict. I recently uncovered the fact that, shockingly, in the last 12 months, Stoke-on-Trent City Council has not issued a single section 215 enforcement notice against property owners who fail to maintain their properties. It is clear that action is needed.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. His Bill would require local authorities to designate at least one and up to three high streets. Does the definition of high street refer specifically to streets, or does it take in all the streets in the wider town centre area?

[Jack Brereton]

I will explain some of that shortly, but the Bill focuses on the core retail centre that is seen in many of our town centres, which may be one or more streets—a collection of streets.

The purpose of the Bill is to place a duty on local government to pause to consider properly what can be done, and to develop an action plan that can be delivered and that will work toward getting our high streets back on track. Retailers and big-name shops will come only where there is demand and the conditions are right—where footfall is generated and physical retail that is neither online nor out-of-town is de-risked. People still value high streets as a place for retail, but that alone cannot be the solution. They want the right mix of shops and leisure in the right public realm, with other attractions, such as a temporary events, to encourage footfall and dwell times. The mix needs to be got right for each high street.

The biggest risk that big-name stores will face is that of being accused by some of gentrifying a high street—quite possibly the same people who accuse them of betraying any high street they leave. Such is life, but we must not be daunted, because as we all saw in the news this week, the prize for getting it right could include the welcome return to the high street of Woolworths in its new iteration. I honestly do not think anyone could misconstrue the return of Woolies to the high street as gentrification —not without considerable bad faith, anyway. Plenty of us would champion its heartening reversal of decline. Sadly, the former Woolworths store in Longton in my constituency is in a very sorry state. The problem is not that it has not been reoccupied; it has been, but the occupiers after Woolworths have further neglected and detracted from the high street and now the store is empty again.

Most people are clear that they do not want high streets to be left in a spiral of decline, however “gritty” that makes them as urban spaces. They want the preservation of the historic fabric and character that a high street brings, alongside enhancements that make it relevant to the future and attract new and interesting uses. The reality of the decline of the former Woolworths in Longton is that the building has been raided more than once as a cannabis factory, with the raids taking place in a two-year period. At the time of the second closure in summer 2021, 1,500 cannabis plants were found and removed. Covid restrictions played a part in helping to conceal what was going on, and made people wary of going to our high streets, but even without covid, the building was a cannabis factory 22 months previously.

More recently, a boarded-up and abandoned takeaway on the other side of the road was raided for cannabis growing in the past eight weeks. That former takeaway has pointedly been reported in press coverage as being within sight of Longton police station. It is certainly my assertion that the police and crime prevention are key to preserving and enhancing the character of our high streets. Working alongside our excellent police, fire and crime commissioner for Staffordshire, Ben Adams, I have been delighted recently to secure safer streets funding, which will play a significant role in upgrading CCTV coverage in Longton, as well as enabling a number of other crime prevention measures such as gating off alleyways.

Our high streets need more footfall, not less, and more dwell time, not less. It is vital that people feel safe to visit. High streets need to be places in which people take pride and which they find pleasant to be in. The Bill is about bringing focus to our high streets, ensuring that local authorities think about the challenges they face and work with those who have an interest in our high streets to look at how we can begin to reverse their decline.

You will have noted, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I said, “Market Street” earlier, not “High Street”. At the risk of stating the obvious, my Bill is not intended merely to work from a list of those streets that are literally called, “High Street”. It seeks to require local authorities to designate a street as a high street for the purpose of the improvement plan. There is at least one designation, and up to three. Designations may be varied or withdrawn over time. It is not my intention that local authorities should be forced to designate an entire high street if one end is clearly different in nature—for example, residential—compared with the end of the street that is more traditionally for high street use. I make it clear that part of the intention is that adjoining streets can be included in the designated high street, or continuous streets with different names that form what is thought of locally as the high street.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his work on this. I am interested in the point that he made about the broader town-centre area. My experience is that many adjoining streets can benefit from this kind of measure and, indeed, neighbouring shopping centres. I urge him to look at that and be as flexible as possible, as there is a risk of displacement activity and concentrating on a small area. I hope that he has thought about that.

[Jack Brereton]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that important point. I agree entirely that the side streets that make up the high street are just as important, and we do not want to see displacement. We want the whole area to be lifted and improved so that it attracts new uses to fill those empty spaces.

Local government should make the designation according to local circumstances, as long as an area is important to the local economy because of a concentration of high street uses. It is further specified that it should not include streets where the importance is considered to be derived principally from goods or services purchased in the course of business. High street consumer retail, including hospitality, is part of what makes the totemic importance of our streets. Defining high streets to the letter is impossible, and we must recognise their evolving nature and the need to attract alternative uses, which may not be primarily retail.

The Bill is not prescriptive by design. For example, one option would be to legislate for the definition of high streets based on the definition used by the Office for National Statistics in its pioneering and experimental work with the Ordnance Survey to map the location and characteristics of high streets in Great Britain. According to that working definition, a high street consists of

“15 or more retail addresses within 150 metres.”

That dataset aims to bound retail clusters using street names, while aiming deliberately to exclude retail functions such as retail parks, industrial estates and isolated shopping centres. By that definition, there are 6,969 high streets in Great Britain, of which 6,136 are in England. In London alone, the Office for National Statistics and Ordnance Survey map shows 1,204 high streets. More importantly, the west midlands has 604, including the sweep of Market Street, Times Square, The Strand, which includes my constituency office, and the pedestrianised Exchange shopping centre in Longton. Interestingly, it also manages to capture that part of City Road in Fenton, also in my constituency, that is primarily retail in character, while excluding the part that is not.

I am drawing attention to the ONS data work and the demo map on the Ordnance Survey website, because it may prove to be a useful starting point for local authorities. It also, of course, helps me to make the point that local authorities do not have to work from scratch on this. There is no intention to place an onerous burden on local authorities; the intent is to get local authorities to become familiar with the data and more proactive about the best practice for the improvement of local high streets, in collaboration with all those who have an interest in making our high streets the best places to be.

I rejected specifying the ONS and Ordnance Survey definition in the Bill, partly because it encompasses so many streets within its definition, and to designate and draw up improvement plans for them all would be onerous. That task could be managed, however, with the stipulation that only up to three high streets per authority can be chosen. That said, I note that local authorities across England have designated nearly 10,000 conservation areas, so there may be room for greater possibility in the designations.

More fundamentally, the ONS and OS definition does not quite encompass what I would think of as a high street in parts of the country, including in my home city. But I stress that it is a great starting point for designating purposes and for the consultees on designations and improvement plans. As the ONS said in the 6 June 2019 article, “High streets in Great Britain”:

“The closure of branches of retailers across many high streets has led to worries about the decline of retail on the high street, and in turn anxiety about how high streets will develop in the future.”

In this context, it is important that good data on high streets are available to monitor the changes and inform policy responses. The article goes on to say:

“It should be noted that this high streets project is very much a work in progress.”

That is reiterated in the 10 August 2020 update, which says:

“We continue to develop our work which means that the data and results in this article are Experimental Statistics.”

At this experimental stage, it seems the right time to start a wider conversation with local government and local communities on which streets should be designated formally as high streets for the purpose of closer study, review and improvement plans. The requirement that at least one street be identified by each local authority ensures that every local authority will engage in this process, and the stipulation that only up to three can be designated at one time is designed to ensure that the task is not too onerous and is meaningful.

[James Daly]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, but is the point of this Bill to support retail on the high street? If that is the point, what does he feel are the challenges from the internet and changes in the market? Does he believe that part of this regeneration is about bringing housing and people closer to the high street? Many towns will have reams and reams of offices and other spaces above the retail shops on the ground floor. We need to bring people closer to the high street in order to make it thrive.

[Jack Brereton]

I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent point. He is absolutely right. While retail is an important aspect of this work, and we hope that this Bill will improve the retail environment on our high streets, it cannot just be about retail. The world has moved on, with online and out-of-town retail, and with the pandemic, which means that we must encourage alternative uses, such as hospitality, leisure and residential. As he says, many of the spaces above shops just lie empty and dormant. If we can encourage residential and business use of those spaces, that will really add to the vibrancy and vitality of our high streets.

[Kerry McCarthy]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent and very thorough speech. Does he share my concern that the whole concept of 15-minute cities has now been caught up in ridiculous conspiracy theories? What it is really about is the fact that we want people to be able to shop locally, to go out and enjoy leisure facilities locally, and not always to have to travel out of town or into the city centre. If we have thriving local communities, everyone can get what they need in their local community.

[Jack Brereton]

The hon. Lady makes an interesting point, but I would say that it varies from place to place. Across the country we have various types of high street, in towns small and large, so it varies depending on the nature of the area and whether it is urban or more rural. It would depend on that right across the country.

As I say, there will no doubt be considerable pressure to designate a large number of high streets from the beginning of this Bill becoming an Act, but I fear that it would prove overwhelming and we should safeguard against this. I say that with a certain trepidation, because there are six historic market towns in the modern city of Stoke-on-Trent. The idea of designating more than three high streets is tempting, because each town has a high street that could, and indeed should, be designated at some point in a rolling process of improvements across the city. I accept that this may prove something to revisit at later stages of the Bill.

The eagle-eyed in the House will have noticed that, for the purposes of the Bill, high street uses mirror those already legislated for in part 10 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023. This encompasses a good range of what would ordinarily be seen as high street uses by the general public and does not specify an exact number of retail addresses within a certain distance, as attempted in the ONS’s experimental definition.

Members will be interested to know that the ONS discovered what it calls

“one notable geographic feature in England”

in what was otherwise a distribution of retail addresses on high streets across the whole of Great Britain that showed no clear pattern across the country. The English feature—this is germane to an English Bill—is that there are hub towns with a higher proportion of retail addresses on their high streets. Hub towns are those that are identified in the official rural-urban classification for England as being important hubs for the rural areas around them because they provide services, employment and businesses. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs includes towns like Stone and Cheadle, in north Staffordshire, in this category. There will be a need for improvement plans to be consulted on beyond the immediate town and rural areas that depend on high streets’ success in these hubs.

There is a great deal of data, and it is time for local authorities to use this to best effect and focus attention on preserving, enhancing and reviving our high streets. They should do this in concert with the communities they serve—both businesses and residential.

[Matt Rodda]

I wonder if the hon. Gentleman has considered the public transport implications of what he is saying, because he is making a very good point about hub towns and rural areas, and their connectivity to bigger towns or cities. In my county, one of the very important benefits we have is the existence of excellent bus services—Reading buses connect to neighbouring smaller towns—and I understand that there might be an issue in Staffordshire with the different level of bus provision. I wonder whether he would like to comment on the importance of public transport and its ability to help regenerate towns and cities.

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[Jack Brereton]

I agree entirely that public transport is vital to many of our high streets and town centres, because connecting communities, whether urban or rural, is very important. In my area, the decline of bus services, which we have seen over a long period, particularly since the pandemic, has had an impact. I have been working to secure more investment into the area in order to address such issues, including through the bus service improvement plan funding, which has been vital in addressing that. In Stoke-on-Trent we have managed to secure £31 million of that funding, which will specifically address such issues. Across the country it is important to consider the impact of transport connections, whether bus, rail or other means, to town centres and high streets.

There are examples of work that is already underway and where such an approach has been taken under the high streets task force. There will be lessons for us all from those examples, including the warning that high streets will need to remain agile, which suggests that improvement plans need to avoid being overly prescriptive, as much as being non-existent. The task force has found that the most common recommendation it has needed to give for the development of a clear and compelling local vision is the need for “place activation”, alongside a compelling local vision and the requirement for more effective place marketing and branding.

In my own town of Longton we are starting to see things being turned around, thanks in particular to the proactive approach of Longton Exchange shopping centre, which has attracted new uses and new organisations such as Urban Wilderness, which is helping to develop a programme of creative activities and events. In addition, the levelling-up funding that we have secured is addressing sites such as the Crown Works, redeveloping that derelict Potteries site into new residential uses. I hope the Minister keeps his commitment to see Longton also benefit from levelling-up partnerships funding.

This issue is about more than just Government funding. As suggested by the high streets task force, such funding will not be enough to preserve high streets. As those of us with high streets in conservation areas already know, the requirement to preserve is insufficient to arrest and reverse deterioration. I was delighted that Market Street in Longton was included in the cross-city heritage action zone for the Potteries, which has subsequently matured into a partnership scheme in a conservation area. Although we have now started to see properties benefit from this grant scheme, it is frustrating that even with this dedicated national support from the Government and their heritage agencies, work on improving the street has none the less proved agonisingly slow. We had to contend with covid, of course, but even taking that into account is not enough to explain the delays.

It was surprising how little the city council knew about the owners of buildings that need repair and reoccupation, but also how blinkered it has proved to be about the severity of the danger than can sometimes be presented. One heritage building recently fell into the street and is still causing chaos, because an area of the street immediately before a major bus stop in the town centre has had to be fenced off. It is a wonder that no one was killed or injured. I had reported the building’s increasingly precarious condition to the city council several months before its collapse, and was not alone in doing so, and this is on a street where a Government scheme will make funding available to landlords to preserve and enhance heritage buildings and bring them back into use.

There is an urgent need to know much more about the physical state of our high streets and to liaise with owners and users to take things forward. Guidance and regulation from the Secretary of State are also important. I ask the House to note the role of Historic England, for example, in issuing guidance when designations and reviews of conservation areas are undertaken. I hope that the Office for Place, now based in Stoke-on-Trent, will have some role in this process, including for high streets.

It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the great deal of work by the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee on which we can usefully draw. The Government response of March 2022 to that Committee’s sixth report, “Supporting our high streets after COVID-19”, said:

“We want to create more vibrant, mixed use town centre areas which will attract people to shop, work and for leisure activities, ensuring they remain viable now and in the future. To do this we need a modernised and agile planning system—one which embraces digital technology, benefits communities and creates places in which people can take real pride.”

The result of that desire was the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act, to which this Bill is a natural progression and complement.

In their response, the Government draw attention to the various support schemes and initiatives that they have provided to assist with the vitality of our high streets. Indeed, there are initiatives from a number of Departments. We have seen the future high streets fund, the high streets heritage action zones and so on, but these funds require largely reactive plans to be brought forward, rather than the proactive improvement plans we need from local government that recognise the importance of high streets as beacons for their whole area. There is also a need to know more about those high streets and to have good working relationships with the owners of the buildings, in order to preserve and enhance those buildings.

It is incumbent on local authorities to get the basics right. Nearly all of the top things people wanted to see in the nationwide survey are, arguably, within the remit and powers of local authorities to deliver. Taking action on the quality of the public realm, with more greenery and less litter, along with appropriate design codes and enforcement against unsightly shopfronts, signs and street clutter, will help to fill empty shops. If it does not do so—say, where the landlord is particularly obstructive or unco-operative—there are now powers for rental auctions be to be required.

The Bill is about getting local authorities to use the powers that are now in place to get on top of the challenges and take action on the issues that are important to high street users or that bring in new uses, whether that involves the big names or the quirky and family-owned independent local businesses that people want to see. They should consider totally different new uses, such as creative and digital start-ups. To get this right, we need more than

“an exercise in dolling the place up with fresh paint that lasts about twelve months”,

which is how I have had one scheme—not in my constituency—described to me recently. In some instances, the local authority may need to get out of the way—for example, it could provide more flexibility by allowing more temporary event notices to be issued. However, without more detailed analysis than is usually in place, it will be hard to deliver the longer-term viability that we all want to see. A short-term, sticking-plaster approach frustrates us all, and it does not adequately achieve the Government’s own objectives.

With the Bill, we will see proactive reviews and improvement plans for high streets that get closer to the root causes of decline and bring forward the physical improvements and event programmes that are likely needed to activate places where feet will fall. I particularly want to thank the Minister for all his support and the Department for bringing forward the Bill. I stress to the Government the importance of implementing it as soon as possible. This is a Bill to reverse the decline of our high streets, and I commend it to the House.

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[Jack Brereton]

I am very grateful for the Minister’s kind words and for all his support and help in bringing the Bill forward. I am grateful also to all the hon. Members across the House who have shown their support today. We have heard some incredibly impassioned speeches, which just shows how much people care about their high streets and the towns, villages and communities in the constituencies they represent. Speaking for the Opposition, the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) referred to local plans and neighbourhood plans, and I think it is right that the Bill is part of that, but it is about due consideration being given to certain matters in those plans. The Bill is not about stopping development that sits outside its scope—new and exciting developments coming to our high streets. It is just about giving due consideration, so I do not think having the matters set out in the Bill will have a major impact.

Turning to Members’ contributions, I particularly thank the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North for raising the importance of those heritage and cultural assets—building vibrancy, creating footfall, and attracting people to our high streets. I was also particularly interested in what the hon. Member for Belfast East said about there being too few partnerships. That is what this Bill is trying to address: the need to bring people together to have that governance and those plans to help address some of the issues in our town centres.

To my hon. Friends over the border in Cheshire, particularly to my hon. Friends the Members for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan), I say that it was absolutely shocking to hear about those plans to increase and create parking charges in some of their town centres. I know that that will have a major impact. I have enjoyed visiting some of the towns in the communities that they represent, and I know that those plans will have a damaging and detrimental impact on them. A number of Members referenced the fact that we have many out-of-town developments with free parking. That will only further emphasise the move towards those out-of-town retail spaces and cause more damage to our high streets and town centres just at a time when we do not need it. I entirely agree with them and wish them well with their campaigns. I wish to thank all Members across the House for their contributions, particularly my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who also mentioned the impact of out-of-town shopping areas.

I stress that we have been working hard to get this Bill together. I hope that we can continue to work across the House to bring it forward and take it through the other place and deliver what will I think be an important piece of legislation to get our high streets back on track—to revive them and to bring people back into our towns and communities so that they can thrive once again.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).