High Street Regeneration and Unlawful Storefronts

Wendy Morton Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

I will be delighted to do so, Ms Vaz. It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I perhaps should abandon my prepared speech and just go for it.

Across the country, our high streets are facing huge pressure. I think all of us in Westminster Hall this morning understand that. Shopkeepers are doing everything they can to keep trading, but they face the double hit of the jobs tax and the bodged business rate reforms, and at a time when our retailers are disappearing, all too often we are seeing those retail units being replaced by vape shops, nail bars and so on, so it is time that real businesses had more support.

In my constituency, Brownhills High Street—you know it very well, Ms Vaz—is home to some fantastic independent retailers, such as Fairy Good Cakes, which is one of my favourites, The Jack ‘Jigger’ Taylor and the butchers A. E. Poxon & Sons. They are serving our local community, but they face a challenging environment that is made more challenging at the minute by the emergence of a sinkhole in the high street. The reason I raise that is that it highlights why, when our high streets have to be closed for emergency work, it is so important that we support local businesses—that we all get out there on the high street. Do not talk; take action—go and put the pound in the tills of these local businesses that work so hard.

In Brownhills, we are fortunate to have received some Pride in Place funding and I hope that the Government will work with me and the community to deliver that. I hope we will be able to receive help with the redevelopment of Ravenscourt, a gap in the high street where we have been working for years to seek some improvement and regeneration. Will the Minister pick up on that for me as well?

I hear day in, day out about the challenges that our businesses face. Briefly, I want to raise an issue that has not yet been raised: car parking. We need car parking that works in the interests of residents and businesses. In Aldridge, some of my residents have recently received a £100 parking charge simply for dropping off family and friends and waiting for a short time on yellow lines, not red lines—

[Valerie Vaz (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Jim Shannon.

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[Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

As many hon. Members have said, high streets speak to something fundamental about our identity and self-confidence in the places we call home. However, in too many towns up and down our country, they are now filled with betting shops, charity shops, vape shops or, in many cases, empty shop windows, devoid of life. The hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) spoke about design codes and shop frontages, which is a really important point that the Government should grip in recognising the civic importance of those spaces. If we allow the country to see that our standards have slipped, it is no wonder that standards slip elsewhere.

To create an environment where it is possible for the kinds of businesses that we want to see succeed once again, we must give them what they need most: a community of customers on their doorstep. That means embracing residential-led high street regeneration, which is why I am delighted to support Capital&Centric’s confidence in Crewe town centre with its proposed regeneration of the Royal Arcade, supported by 500 homes, plus bars, cafés, restaurants and other uses.

[Wendy Morton]

On the regeneration of our high streets and town centres, does the hon. Gentleman agree that there should be much more emphasis on bringing empty shops and empty homes back into use? It would help the high streets and the housing situation.

[Connor Naismith]

Yes, I absolutely agree.

We also need a tax system that incentivises the kinds of economic activity we want to see for the Pride in Place agenda. Too many of my small independent hospitality businesses have told me that it is not where we currently are. Kelly, from St Martha Greek taverna, is campaigning along with 50 local independent hospitality businesses, including the Red Cow and the GOAT sports bar in Nantwich, as well as Noodle Gurus in Crewe, alongside many others, to join our European counterparts in cutting VAT to 10% for hospitality businesses. I am proud to support their campaign.

We need a stronger state, capable and willing to intervene at local level to fix things when the market fails to do so. I am a huge supporter of the high street rental auctions and the Pride in Place agenda, but we must go further in giving local authorities the power, capacity, confidence and funding to put those powers to use so that my constituents can once again be truly proud of the civic spaces that we call our town centres. If we act decisively, we can restore pride in our high streets and ensure that they once again reflect the strength and character of our communities.

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[Nesil Caliskan]

Footfall is a key part of keeping our high streets alive. That comes partly through home building, but it also comes from ensuring variety on our high streets. A key part of the Government’s high streets innovation partnership will involve working with selected places to set out new approaches, boost activity and support a shift towards a mixed use of high streets. Alongside that, the Government are investing almost £6 billion into Pride in Place programmes over the next decade to give communities the power and funding to transform their local areas.

[Wendy Morton]

I want to mention quickly something that I did not have time to talk about earlier. I welcome the funding that we have had for Brownhills, but will the Minister work with us to ensure that it goes to the areas of Brownhills town that we need it to reach? Would she accept that regeneration of the high street is critical?

[Nesil Caliskan]

I am very happy to work with the right hon. Member. I was about to say that I would be happy to meet her to talk about Ravenscourt, which I think she referred to in her speech, but I extend that to any part of her constituency that will benefit from the Government’s Pride in Place funding.