Town Deals: Covid-19 Recovery

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Member for Southport (Damien Moore) and congratulate him on introducing the debate, to which the Minister will reply. I always like to give a Northern Ireland perspective to such debates and say what we have been able to do there. I hope to be able to support the Minister. The reason we are able to do these things through our Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment in Northern Ireland is that the central Government here ensured that all parts of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland had the opportunity to respond in a positive fashion.

I understand that health is not a part of this debate, but that is another area where we could act collectively, with all the regions together. It is better to have a single strategy and purpose for us all to work together. That is just a by the way comment—it is not for this debate.

I have been astounded by the resilience and determination of our high street sector during this dreadful time. I always make it my business to shop local, and I know that other Members do the same. If I can get it locally, that is where I will buy it. If I cannot get it locally, I will look elsewhere, but I make it my business to shop in the wee bakery down the road and the clothes shop on the other side of the square. If I need any hardware stuff, I will go to Ray Grahams in Newtownards or N. G. Bell’s in Ballywalter. I do all my shopping locally because I know how important it is to support the high street. Before covid happened, we were getting to a stage where there were no vacancies whatsoever on our high street. Some have appeared over the last period of time but, thank goodness, most of them have been filled.

The high street, by and large, has been very resilient. From changing regulations to decisions made overnight, they have carried out what this Government have required of them with a stoicism that is the best of British, yet the facts are clear: for many, the threat of another period of lockdown will be the end of their business. Many high street businesses need the trade that they had before covid, and even if we get back to where we were then, I suspect that we will not see that level of trade again until we move out of covid in its entirety. Those businesses need continued support in the interim, and I am thankful that the Government recognise that need and are looking to meet it.

In Northern Ireland, our Minister for the Economy has put in place two schemes, the high street stimulus scheme and the holiday at home voucher scheme. Every person in Northern Ireland aged 18 and over will be eligible to apply for a pre-paid card worth £100 to spend in the local high street, which is designed to stimulate local businesses, including retail and hospitality sector outlets. Following the pandemic, that is a very positive scheme. Eligible individuals aged 18 or over will be asked to apply for that pre-paid card through a dedicated online portal. The card must be used in bricks and mortar businesses in Northern Ireland, and cannot be used online. Some online businesses say that that is a disappointment, but the scheme being specific along those lines means that people have to physically go to the high street, which is what we want to see. We want footfall to return and we want to see people out and about. It is encouraging that those high street stops that were able to open throughout covid-19 received lots of footfall, especially in my home town of Newtownards. The chamber of trade there has done some incredibly good stuff, and should be commended for it. The high street stimulus scheme means that some 1.4 million people in Northern Ireland will spend £140 million on our high streets, rather than online. It is a good scheme; it will have a multiplier effect that will help bring many more customers back through the doors of local shops in the retail, hospitality and other sectors.

The holiday at home voucher scheme will allow Northern Ireland households to claim back 50% for a stay of two nights or more in certified accommodation. This is another scheme that is very specific to the hospitality trade, because we in Northern Ireland probably depend on tourism more than most districts, although many colleagues in the House from Scotland, Wales and England will tell me that tourism is a key factor for them as well. Other vouchers will offer 50% off visits to attractions and tourism experience providers up to a value of £20. The central economic theme of my local council, Ards and North Down Borough Council, is tourism, because—I say this honestly, and very proudly—we live in a beautiful area. I live near Strangford Lough, and I am very fortunate to live there. It is a key tourist attraction. The Mount Stewart estate, which the National Trust is involved in, is a headquarters for us: it is a place of great historical value, and I have extended an invitation to the Minister of State for Northern Ireland to come over for a visit sometime in August. We also have the aquarium at Portaferry, the water sports and potential for tourism at Strangford Lough, and many other historical places to visit, so tourism is a really good theme for our council, and those moneys through the voucher scheme and so on have been able to help with that.

Vouchers will be allocated on a first come, first served basis, and each household can apply for each type of voucher. Households can then claim their voucher money back by uploading their receipt and voucher details online. The scheme will be launched in the autumn, because we figure that in the autumn things might be falling back a wee bit, so it will be good to have a scheme in place to drive demand after the summer season. I believe that both those schemes are a good use of public money and I congratulate the Ministers—it was Diane Dodds and it is now Gordon Lyons—on their research and work in introducing those schemes. We all eagerly await more details on the dates of release.

I referred to the active chamber of trade in Ards, which works proactively and positively in its engagement with all the shops in the high street in Newtownards and elsewhere. I will also make a plug for a former colleague who used to sit with me in the Assembly. Simon Hamilton stepped down and is now involved with Belfast chamber of trade. He is a guy with great potential and has great acumen for his job. I think that he also sees the benefits of all those things.

However, as welcome as this scheme most certainly is, it is not enough. I hate to say that, because it sounds terrible when someone says, “This is not enough”. However, I say it to make the point that there has to be an ongoing policy and strategy, because I believe that more needs to be done to secure high street shops. I noticed that one of the shops over here—was it John Lewis?—said that it would turn into some of its shops into flats and accommodation, so there is a trend for some to take away from the high street. But I think we need to strengthen the high street and facilitate online reach with a town centre base.

We all understand that every penny sown into viable businesses helps to retain employment, and I see great potential for employment. Such businesses bring dividends to the local economy, not only to local suppliers but to Government resources through sustained tax and national insurance contributions, because when we work, we pay our national insurance and tax, so we all benefit. It is like a merry-go-round—we work and then the money returns to Government, and hopefully enough money to sustain what we are trying to do.

That is why I was very excited to hear of the town and city funding. I know that my local council—Ards and North Down Borough Council—was immediately working out how best we could revitalise our town with that funding. However, an issue was that projects had to be almost shovel-ready. Fortunately, we probably had a great many schemes that were shovel-ready, but there was a problem with the planning system; it takes months upon months to navigate it. So I suppose it is a case of having the planning system in place to ensure that these schemes can go ahead.

Again, I know that this is not within the Minister’s remit, but I ask him in his summing up to say whether he has had any discussions with the Minister for the Economy in Northern Ireland, to exchange ideas and see what we can do to help each other, because I believe that wherever we are in this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, we should help each other. I also believe that we have ideas that go well in Scotland, Northern Ireland, England and Wales. We can do it better together, and I certainly wish to encourage that.

I know that my local council is making plans to prepare for new tranches of funding and I ask Ministers back home to work closely with local councillors to ensure that the funding goes where the need is. Local councils are on the frontline; they have the staff and the local councillors to push the strategy and the policies, so I think councils are the places where the schemes and the tranches of funding should be directed.

I have been made aware of a tremendous project. I am very pleased to encourage all new projects in my constituency of Strangford, and we are in discussions with planners and some of the developers who are keen to provide what I will refer to as “a staycationer’s dream”, in the form of glamping in the most beautiful part of the United Kingdom. It is a new scheme in Grey Abbey, the neighbouring village to mine. I think it has incredible potential, as do the developer and the council.

However, we need infrastructure in place to secure this wonderful environmental proposal, which will bring money into the local economy as well as preserving the beauty of nature in the area. That proposal is attractive because it is in an area of outstanding natural beauty, which we want to preserve. It will also be good if we can tie some tourism into that in a way that is not obtrusive or overly visible but takes advantage of that outstanding natural beauty. Can we look at towns being able to use towns funding to enhance their potential for tourism? I know the Minister will refer to tourism when he sums up, which is a key issue for all of us who are speaking and others who were not able to come to the debate.

I believe that local councils are best placed to advise the Government on how to get every penny to where it needs to go, and ultimately back into the coffers. I look forward with pleasure to the Minister’s response and the contributions of those who speak after me. I hope he will assure us that councils will be able to advise and will be involved in all future town deals.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell, and to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Damien Moore) on securing this important debate, and I thank him for supporting me, in his other role as Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Parliamentary Private Secretary, with the matter of Walley’s Quarry landfill in my constituency, which I will touch on later because it relates to the town deal and the need to solve that problem before we get the benefits of the investment.

Before I talk more about Newcastle-under-Lyme, I want to start by addressing some of the comments of the hon. Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe). Let me quote at some length from one of her colleagues:

“For far too long the ambitions, needs and values of nine million people in towns across Britain have not been heard.

Our economic model treats cities as engines of growth, which at best drag surrounding towns along in their wake, causing life to become harder, less secure and less hopeful for too many people in towns in recent decades.

Our political system is blind to the values and experiences of people who live in our towns, wrongly treating cities as a proxy for the national opinion.

After the EU Referendum starkly exposed the growing gulf between towns and cities, it is clear that this is no longer sustainable.”

Those are brilliant words. They are the words of the shadow Foreign Secretary, the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), who represents another northern town, when she launched the Centre For Towns back in December 2017. Actually, it was the Conservative party and Government who took that agenda, ran with it and spoke to the people who felt they had not been listened to. Meanwhile, at the election, the Labour party doubled down on their votes in the cities and from people who voted remain and wanted to reverse the referendum result, whereas in most of the towns in the red wall, such as the one I have the honour to represent, people voted leave, wanted to be listened to and wanted their vote and their town to be respected. It is little wonder that the results of the election followed from that.

I believe that only 22 of the 101 towns invited to bid were in districts controlled by Conservative administrations and 39 were controlled by Labour administrations, so on the point that the hon. Member for Leicester East made, this is really about people voting with their feet, because they saw that this Government were proposing to offer something to towns that had been left behind for far too long—towns such as Wigan and Newcastle-under-Lyme. I make absolutely no apology for that, and I am really glad that the Government have finally grasped the nettle on towns that have been left behind. That is not necessarily a consequence of politics. It is as much about economics; it is about people moving to cities and the globalisation of jobs. It is also about the change in retail—many of our high streets depend on retail. I will say a bit more about that.

On 8 June, 30 towns received funding in the most recent wave of town deal funding—the Secretary of State announced a total of £725 million—one of which was Newcastle-under-Lyme. I am very proud of our bid and our board, of which I am a member. I thank Trevor McMillan, who is also the vice-chancellor of Keele University in my constituency, for his leadership of the board, and Councillor Stephen Sweeney, the deputy leader of the council, for his role on it. We put in a tremendous bid, and we managed to get nearly the full £25 million, which will be incredibly valuable in regenerating Newcastle-under-Lyme.

I also want to put in in a word for some of our other bids. There are many schemes, as the Minister knows. Newcastle College, which is one of the best further education colleges in the entire country and was one of the first ever to get “outstanding” across the board from Ofsted, has a bid for an institute of technology. Obviously, that is not within the Ministry’s remit, but there is an enabling bid with it because the site that it wants requires that we move the council’s depot, which is in completely the wrong location, to somewhere else on the site. There is an enabling bid through the levelling-up fund, and there is also a community renewal fund bid in.

I agree completely with what the hon. Member for Strangford said. We need to find better ways of helping local authorities and local community organisations to get bids. A lot of these places have not had investment and do not have the experience of putting in bids. They do not necessarily have a pipeline and things that are shovel-ready. The community renewal fund, in particular, was on a very tight timescale that also coincided with the local elections. We got a good bid together, but in some ways it is the same people who always bid for things, so I want to find ways to reach out to communities— even villages and parish councils—that could bid for some of these things but do not have the expertise or the resources to do that. We need ways to support our authorities and councils, even down to parish council level. That would be really welcome in making sure everybody can bid in to these funds in the future.

I will speak a little bit about Newcastle’s bid, which has three main objectives. First, to open up new growth opportunities through enhanced physical and digital connectivity. We will have new electric vehicle charging infrastructure and improved wi-fi across the town centre, better public transport and better cycling measures. Secondly, we will encourage increased footfall in the town centre by diversifying and enhancing it. We will demolish and redevelop lots of previous sites. Some have been demolished already with the advance funds. There is not much to point to at the moment because things are going down, but very soon things will be coming up again, and I know that will be a real moment of hope for the town.

Finally, the bid aims to channel investment into regenerating communities, particularly some of my most deprived wards such as Knutton and Chesterton. The master plan for Knutton includes improving business accommodation, a new village hall and village green, 240 new homes and improvements to road safety. There will also be investment into Chesterton and Cross Street, enabling high-quality housing for the local community—not only new housing but replenishing and replacing the existing stock.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned electric vehicle charging. Yesterday, his colleague, the hon. Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) proposed a ten-minute rule Bill that I think will be critical for the future if we are looking towards electric vehicles, and I was pleased to sponsor it and pleased that the hon. Lady brought that forward. The hon. Gentleman mentioned development, and I think the hon. Member for Kensington referred in her introduction yesterday to all new developments having those key charging points in place. Does he feel that that should be part of this?

[Aaron Bell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. We absolutely need to ensure that we think about future technologies and those that are here today when we undertake development. We see that on the estate now; I think Speaker’s Court is having charging infrastructure installed. If we are to build new buildings, it makes sense that they should have those places for charging.

I should also mention that, as well as the £23.6 million from the town deal, we secured £11 million from the future high streets fund, which means the levelling up funding already secured by Newcastle-under-Lyme is more than £34 million, with other bids currently in. That future high streets fund bid is so crucial to the actual recovery from covid, which is the title of the debate. Unfortunately, covid has exacerbated trends that were already there in our town centre. We have lost an awful lot of tenants on our high street. We have a large high street and the Ironmarket pedestrianised area, but there is unfortunately an awful lot of empty shops at the moment.

The solution obviously cannot be more retail, because people are shopping online. We need more hospitality and housing in the town centre, and that is exactly what our future high streets bid will do, with the redevelopment of the long vacant Ryecroft site and the pulling down the old civic offices, which I believe is beginning this week, although it will take quite a while because there is a lot of asbestos and it has to be done carefully. Again, these are real signs of regeneration. Things that have been left derelict and vacant for far too long are finally being addressed by this Government, by our town deal bid and by our future high streets fund bid.

That all shows the commitment of the Government to levelling up places such as Newcastle, which are long overdue some TLC, basically. Once we have got it all done—it will take a few years—we will actually have a better high street. We will build back better. We will have more skills, with a skills centre opening in Lancaster Buildings that will help people get back into jobs or to reskill, and we will have more attractive public spaces. That is important too, because the physical infrastructure of a town centre is so important for people’s experiences.

I should mention a couple of private sector issues blighting Newcastle that I think the Ministry should have an interest in. We have a large student flat building that has been left unfinished for many years, called the Sky Buildings. It is incredibly difficult to work out who can actually handle that process. Various companies have gone through liquidations and takeovers. The investors appear to have lost their money, but that has not been finalised as such. The council is not in a position to take it over through a compulsory purchase order because it is probably more of a liability than an asset now. This sort of thing can blight town centres. We need to find better ways of dealing with unfinished buildings, where the architect or the builders have essentially gone bust and left something unfinished, which can blight an area from a long time and discourages further private sector investment coming in.

Finally, it would not be a speech from me without my mentioning Walleys quarry, the landfill in my constituency. We already have £34 million of investment, and it will be nearly £50 million if we get this institute of technology bid, and these will make Newcastle such a better place, but there is a bleak cloud hanging over the town, and that is the landfill and the odour coming from the landfill. It is principally a DEFRA issue and a Department of Health and Social Care issue. However, it requires a multi-agency approach, and Staffordshire County Council and the Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council are involved as well. Any help that the Minister’s Department can give us in getting this situation resolved as quickly as possible will be vital, because the stink from the landfill is undermining what is excellent news for Newcastle. When I announced the £23.5 million, people were obviously pleased but all the money in the world will not help unless we get this problem resolved. Through the Minister, I plead again to the Secretary of State and will raise it at Prime Minister’s questions.

Newcastle-under-Lyme has so much potential. Finally we are unlocking it with this investment. I thank the Government for what they are doing and my hon. Friend the Member for Southport for calling this important debate.