Future of Town Centres and High Streets

John Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent case for his local area, and such positivity will do nothing but help further investment in his constituency.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I agree that my hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does he agree that the neighbourhood planning provisions in the Localism Act 2011 give local communities a greater say for the first time in helping to shape the sort of town centres that they need and want?

[Mr Jones]

That vision is certainly significant and, along with the national planning policy framework provisions such as the “town centre first” policy, it is extremely important. I shall come on to that in a moment.

I shall go through some of the Portas proposals in more detail but, before doing so, I should like to quote the final words of the review:

“Those are just my ideas. What are yours?”

I hope that it is in that spirit that right hon. and hon. Members will use the focus of today’s debate to feed into the work of the Portas review through their own constituency experience, which should serve to inform Ministers’ thinking before they make their response and implement any policies following that crucial review.

I will briefly mention one or two points from the five groups of recommendations in the Portas proposals. I very much welcome the idea of a town team. Many constituencies have town centre partnerships or business improvement districts, and I was personally involved in setting up a town centre partnership in the town of Bedworth in the neighbouring North Warwickshire constituency when I was council leader. The concept of the town team represents a shift in thinking.