Future of Town Centres and High Streets

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of the future of town centres and high streets.

Let me begin by thanking the Chairman of the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), and her fellow colleagues on the Committee for granting this debate. I thank also hon. Members and Friends who supported the request for this debate at that Committee.

We all have at least one if not several town centres or high streets in our constituencies. I know that many right hon. and hon. Members share my passion for our town centres. For me, that passion was developed during my time as a local councillor and council leader, when I had responsibility for town centres during the deepest and darkest period of the recession. Our town centres are focal points for shopping and meeting friends and colleagues, as well as for accessing entertainment, leisure, culture, public services and transport among other things.

The economic and social contribution that our town centres make cannot be understated. High streets make up 13% of UK economic value and 14% of total UK employment. Unfortunately, over many years the position of our high streets and town centres has been eroded to varying degrees. Many of the stronger retail chains have squeezed out the individual small businesses from many high streets but are now retrenching owing to the economic conditions. They are becoming dependent on fewer and fewer stores and consequently are withdrawing from many of our town centres.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate, as well as on setting up the all-party group on town centres. Does he agree that one way of regenerating town centres is, as happens in my constituency, to give tax incentives to areas that are trying to regenerate themselves and to independent shops and small businesses so that they can set up, as opposed to only the chains coming into every high street across Britain?

[Mr Jones]

I certainly think that we at least need to put our town centres and high streets on a level playing field with other parts of the retail industry. We need to be as innovative as possible to make sure that taxes are as low as possible for people who want to operate on our high streets.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

I am sorely tempted to throw my notes away and to join the hon. Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) in castigating English Heritage, but I shall resist.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate and all those Members who approached the Committee, of whom I was one. The debate is a reflection of their wisdom, because this issue clearly excites interest on both sides of the House and across the country, largely because everybody has a local high street and a local town centre—not just Members of Parliament, but individual citizens. The importance of the welfare of high streets and town centres cannot be overestimated.

The issues around town centres and high streets are perennial. I join others in welcoming the Government’s commissioning of a report from Mary Portas and her work. The report introduces some new language, and anyone who reads it can tell that it has been written not by a planning professional or a civil servant, but by somebody whose main qualification is in the business about which they are speaking and whose enthusiasm is patently transparent. That runs through the whole report. I am not quite familiar with a few expressions in the report—I do not know what she means by a “three-dimensional retailing experience”—but we can forgive that kind of hyperbole when the essence of what she addresses is so critical to the health of so many of our communities.

I notice that the Government say they will have their response out by the spring, which I think means the day before the House rises in the summer, whatever date in July that might be. I hope the Minister takes into account what people say and how important this issue is. I sometimes worry about Ministers’ responses to Backbench Business Committee debates. They accept motions—although there are no specifics in today’s motion—but spend all their time during their speeches explaining why they do not agree with them. I hope that that will not be the case today.

High streets and town centres mean different things in different parts of the country—they mean different things in urban areas, semi-urban areas, towns and villages—but in both this country and around the world, the common denominator is that the local market, however we describe it, is a key ingredient of the local community. In many ways, it defines the local community. As others have said, it is not just a place of trade and exchange, but a place of social interaction and opportunity, a meeting place and a centre for all kinds of activity, not merely retail.

There are many different aspects of the high street debate. I agree with the hon. Member for South West Devon that the threat is no longer from new out-of-town developments. Time will tell whether we have sold the pass on that and whether we allowed too many developments in previous years with which the traditional local ribbon high streets must contend, but the threat is not from new developments.

[Robert Halfon]

I am listening to the hon. Gentleman’s thoughtful speech. He says that local retail centres are not a threat, but all the retail centres in Harlow are very popular and have a huge advantage because they have free parking. People can park outside the door and go about their daily business at the retail centres, whereas many shopping precincts—not just in Harlow, but all around the country—are paved over and very difficult to park near, and many have parking charges. Does he agree that free parking would make a huge difference, as my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) suggested?

[Jim Dowd]

I shall come to that in a moment. Perhaps I have not made myself clear. I do not think that the threat comes from new developments, the construction of which seems largely to have abated, as the hon. Member for South West Devon pointed out. The fear is that we have already created too many of them, and that they will still have an effect on the traditional town centres and high streets.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gareth Johnson]

Yes, but I do not feel that it is an either/or situation. Many families can enjoy both the high streets and the out-of-town shopping centres, but in different ways. Very often, out-of-town shopping centres can be destinations that people enjoy.

[Robert Halfon]

I invite my hon. Friend to the Harvey shopping centre in Harlow. It is a wonderful shopping centre integrated with shops in the local town centre. Does he not agree, though, that the answer to his conundrum is to have a level playing field, as I mentioned earlier, so that high streets have the same rights as shopping malls and out-of-town centres?