Putting our high streets back in local hands

Not every day you go to town for a cuppa and bump into the Prime Minister, is it?

Today, the Prime Minister came to Ilkeston, and I was absolutely buzzing to welcome him alongside Angela Rayner, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, and Claire Ward, the Mayor of the East Midlands.

Andy started with a walk up Bath Street, looking at some of the work Erewash Borough Council has been doing to improve the town centre, before heading into The Hub to meet me alongside residents, local business owners and community leaders. It was a useful opportunity to hear directly from people about what they want to see from Ilkeston and what they think needs to change.

That conversation sits within a much bigger challenge facing high streets across the country. For years, we have watched local services disappear from town centres, while other types of businesses have expanded into the space that has been left behind. Vape shops and adult gaming centres are perhaps the most obvious examples, but the wider issue is what happens when a town loses the mix of shops, services and businesses that made people want to visit in the first place.

There are many reasons why high streets have struggled. The growth of online shopping has changed consumer habits, business costs have risen and some town centres have struggled to adapt. There isn’t a single answer to all of those problems. But planning policy does matter, because it determines how much influence councils and communities have over what happens in their own town centres.

At the moment, that influence isn’t always strong enough.

The Government is changing the planning rules so that, from the new year, vape shops and adult gaming centres will need planning permission before opening. That gives councils and local residents an opportunity to have a proper say over whether those businesses are appropriate for a particular location.

There will also be stronger powers to prevent vape shops opening in inappropriate places, including near schools, and to tackle the clustering of vape shops on the same high street. The definition of a vape shop will also be tightened, so that businesses cannot avoid the rules by presenting themselves as a general convenience store when their main business is actually selling vapes.

I think there is an important distinction here. This isn’t about saying that every vape shop or every gambling business is illegitimate. It is about recognising that the cumulative effect of businesses on a town centre matters, and that local councils and communities should have the ability to respond when they think that a particular pattern of development is damaging their high street.

The same principle applies to gambling premises. The Government intends to consult on revoking the “aim to permit” rule in the 2005 Gambling Act, which currently restricts the circumstances in which councils can refuse new gambling premises. The intention is to give councils greater scope to respond where there are strong local concerns, particularly where there is a concentration of gambling premises in a particular area.

There is also a more serious side to this work. Where premises are suspected of being linked to organised crime, police and local authorities need enough time to investigate properly. The Government will therefore legislate to double the maximum length of Closure Orders from six months to twelve months. That should make it harder for rogue operators to simply wait for a closure to expire and reopen before investigations have been completed.

All of this is ultimately about giving local government more of the tools it needs to manage its own town centres.

But planning rules alone aren’t going to revitalise our high streets. We also need investment, good public spaces, successful local businesses and attractive town centres that people actually want to spend time in.

That’s why I was pleased that part of the announcement is focused on the physical appearance of our high streets as well. Over the next six months, councils will receive practical support to improve shopfronts, signs and the overall look and feel of their town centres, backed by the Planning Advisory Service.

That matters more than it might sound. A high street is a collection of individual businesses, but it is also a shared public space. The condition of the buildings, the quality of the shopfronts, the signage and the general appearance of the town all contribute to how people experience it.

In Ilkeston, we’ve already got examples of what can be achieved when there is investment and a clear effort to improve the town centre. The work Erewash Borough Council has been doing is important, and it was good to be able to show some of it to the Prime Minister.

But I also know from talking to residents and businesses that there is a lot more they want to see.

For me, the important thing about these changes is that they start to put some of the decision-making power back into the hands of the people who actually live and work in these places. If residents are concerned about the concentration of certain businesses on their High Street, they should have a meaningful way of expressing that concern. If councils want to protect the character of a town centre, they should have the planning tools to do it. And if there are rogue operators using premises for criminal activity, the authorities should have the powers and the time they need to deal with them.

The visit to Ilkeston gave us a chance to talk about all of that in a very practical way, with people who actually use the high street every day.

I want Ilkeston to have a town centre where people can spend a Saturday afternoon, meet friends, go for a coffee, do their shopping, access services and support local businesses. That won’t happen simply because we change a planning rule, but giving communities more control over the future of their high street is an important part of making it possible.

There is plenty more work to do, both in Ilkeston and across the country. But I think this is a sensible step towards giving our town centres a better future, and I’m pleased that Ilkeston was able to be part of the conversation.