High Streets and Town Centres in 2030

Mark Prisk Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mr Mark Prisk (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—namely, that I am a director of Stanfords, a travel and cartography business, and, with my sister, a joint owner of a small commercial high street property.

It is a pleasure to follow the Chair of our Select Committee, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who gave a good synopsis of the inquiry and of the report. I will share a number of the points that he made, but I will try not to duplicate.

This issue affects not just every high street but, by that very fact, every community. Every constituency has areas we can think of that are seriously struggling to cope. High streets face difficulties due to a long-term shift in the way people shop, rising costs and the fact that consumer demand is struggling and changing. That perfect storm of rising costs and weaker demand means that we need to rethink the role and character of our town centres or high streets.

I will focus on three areas. First, town centres are not dead—that is certainly the view of the Government and of our Committee—but an awful lot of them are in intensive care, and some may not make it. We need to free our high streets. Look at the different reasons cited for the problems: restrictive planning arrangements, a heavy burden of taxes and charges, and an unwillingness of some retailers to rethink their business model—as we have heard—and of building owners to reconsider how they collaborate with their near neighbours. Town centres therefore need to change. The requirement, as the report rightly says, is to move towards a broad range of communal activities. Fundamentally, for a town centre to succeed in the future, it must be a place where people want to meet, to shop, sure, and to socialise, to go to a movie, to keep fit, to meet friends or to eat and drink—all those different activities. In different locations, however, the exact priorities will be different depending on local demand.

The concept of a place where people want to meet means that a successful town centre not only has to be able to adapt from where it is now but has to be free in the future to adapt as consumer demand continues to change. It needs to have a public realm that is attractive, welcoming and safe. That is about functional and aesthetic design and about engagement with the community. I totally endorse the point about adapting BIDs, including having community representatives. The other element of the notion of a place where people meet is that access has to be convenient. As Members present understand, beneath that is a whole raft of issues including the location and pricing of parking, alternative means of transport to the town centre, walkability and the interactions of pedestrians, cyclists and so on.

Secondly, on flexibility, the Chair of the Committee rightly pointed out other planning issues, but one of the critical ones is use classes. I understand why in the past they were established but, frankly—I say this as a surveyor —they have become too complex and counterproductive. Some argue, “We just need to tinker a little with the use classes, remove some of the sub-categories and everything will be fine.” I strongly disagree. We need to establish a single town centre use, which is consumer-facing and embraces a wide range of activities. I recognise that there might be an argument for food preparation to be a subset, on the grounds of public health, but to my mind, the notion of that town centre use class, which would allow movement of activities, is crucial for town centres to have flexibility.

Alongside that, ensuring that building owners, businesses and local authorities change their mindsets is important to flexibility. That is about the quality of local leadership, which was clear from the evidence to the Committee. Often the distinction between neighbouring towns is the calibre of local leadership. Mark Williams, director of the Hark Group, said:

“Leadership must come from the local authority, for the reasons I have said: it is their town and it should give very clear direction as to what it wants.”

That is true, but with one caveat: the local authority cannot do that on its own; it has to work in partnership. Property owners and other stakeholders need to collaborate. The collaborative nature of forums such as BIDs where everyone involved works together is important. I would like to see BIDs strengthened with new powers, capabilities and membership.

Finally, on digital taxes and online competition, I am disappointed by the Government’s response to the report—although I recognise the hand of the Treasury, probably, rather than of the Ministry. I take the view that we must ensure that all retailers pay comparable tax rates, unlike now. Online retailers have an inherent competitive advantage, as the Chair of the Committee rightly pointed out. Within retailing, we need to shift to a much stronger emphasis on turnover, rather than on fixed property costs.

I have seen several good propositions, such as a simple consolidated tax for smaller businesses or—from Tesco—an online sales levy. A reduction in the business rate would allow such an online sales levy, to ensure that, from the Treasury’s point of view, the revenue is balanced and, from the competition point of view, the online retailer and the bricks-and-mortar retailer are able to compete fairly. There is a good opportunity there. I simply say to the Minister, I hope that we will see more lateral thinking on that.

Finally, in my book, this issue affects every single community. We need to see action, in particular if we are not to see the very heart of many of our communities disappear altogether.