City and Town Centres: Regeneration

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson) on securing this debate.

I want to focus my remarks on empty shops. Mr Vickers, as my constituent you will be very familiar with some of the comments that I will make. This is not a new story; the decline of town centres has been overseen by a decade and a half of neglect without a national strategy to ensure that communities continue to have healthy, thriving high streets and town centres. It has fallen to local areas to undertake plans themselves—expending significant cost and time—to present plans to Government and then to gradually eke out funds, at sporadic intervals, to try to fulfil their local vision. That has happened in Grimsby and Cleethorpes. An endeavour under the banner of the Greater Grimsby town deal board and the commitment of local businesses brought about the establishment of the 2025 Group, whose members are working together to deliver the kinds of improvements that will make areas attractive and safe, to encourage the increased use of expanding town centre facilities.

I have long argued that town centres and high streets need to evolve to survive, but that requires intervention when the market fails. Initiatives such as the new Horizon Youth Zone on Garth Lane, the introduction of a community diagnostic centre—that is not without its issues but I am raising them separately with the Health Secretary—or the proposed new transport hub will all go towards making Grimsby town centre much more attractive.

We have some brilliant businesses in our town centres and on our high streets that all worked so hard through the pandemic to keep going in the face of rising bills. They have dug deep and kept their doors open. I went to the Great Big Small awards recently and I was pleased to see so many businesses celebrating and being celebrated for their contributions to the vibrancy of the offer across north-east Lincolnshire. Although I do not have time to mention them all—I really wanted to—I will say that Buzz Café has the best chips in the world. If any Member wants to come for Fish and Chips Friday, they are very welcome.

In Grimsby and Cleethorpes, we have loads of empty shops, whether we are on St Peter’s Avenue or the marketplace just behind. The plan is to pedestrianise the marketplace, and local businesses are really worried that that will affect footfall for them. Companies, particularly banks, are leaving big gaps that lie empty for extended periods of time. When they are filled—this is an issue that I have raised before—they are filled with vape shops and barbers and there is a real lack of a range of different options. I really support the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North about keeping the quality good, the appearance less gaudy, and the impression of the area at a high level so it is improved and is made more, not less, attractive.