Retail and the High Street

Debate between Martin Vickers and Charles Walker

Thursday 28th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Martin Vickers]

I am afraid that I do not agree with the hon. Lady. I am very much one for freeing up the ability of councils to put together plans, schemes and initiatives of the sort I mentioned, which, although they may need central funding to kick-start them, are bottom-up schemes. I cannot agree with her.

Much is made of car parking charges. I agree that in an ideal world we would not have them—my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) will refer to the successful schemes that North East Lincolnshire council has introduced—but getting rid of charges is not a panacea. I recall mentioning in a similar debate that I was the councillor on North East Lincolnshire council responsible for environmental services, including car parking. We discussed it time and time again and had various initiatives to help with Christmas shopping and the like, but the reality is that we got £1.25 million in income from car parking charges. If a council is providing services elsewhere, it simply cannot at a stroke say, “We’ll do away with that £1 million.” It is a problem.

Grimsby town centre, the main shopping centre that serves my constituency, has a successful and thriving shopping centre, Freshney Place, which charges. People go there in their thousands, often at the expense of going to other areas that do not charge. If the offer is right, people do not mind paying a modest amount for parking. I can see that I have just exceeded my eight minutes, so I will conclude there and hand over.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

I intend to call the wind-ups at six minutes past four and give each of the Front Benchers 11 minutes. Ms Coffey can have two minutes at the end.