‘High streets have misplaced their buzz – native folks have to be ones to get it again’
Ask someone to show you around the town they grew up in. Chances are they’ll spend half the journey saying: “That used to be…”
That betting shop used to be the old Woolworths. That vape shop used to be the butchers. That boarded up building on the corner used to be the local.
Anyone about my age or older knows there’s a special kind of sadness that comes with that. We remember the buzz of the high street on a Saturday morning. The smell of the bakery. Bumping into neighbours every few yards because everyone seemed to be in town.
And then we remember that, for many hight streets, much of that has gone. That’s why the decline of our high streets is so emotional for so many of us. And it’s why pretty much every Prime Minister since the nineties has promised to revitalise them.
Our high streets are yet another example of what happens when you hoard power in one place. You don’t just hollow out industries, you hollow out the communities that surround them. When good jobs disappear, when young people have to leave to find opportunity, when investment dries up, the effects show up on our high streets too.
Up until now, we’ve tried to reverse that from behind a desk in Westminster. But you can’t rebuild the heart of a community from hundreds of miles away. As far as I’m concerned, we’re not going to get anywhere with our high streets until we start trusting the people who know them best.
That’s what today’s announcements are all about. We’re giving local people a bigger say in the type of shops that can open in their communities. And yes, I’m talking about dealing with those vape and betting shops that seem to have sprung up on every corner.
Too often, they’ve taken the place of the shops and services that people want and have pride in and that you want to go to on the weekend. And when they start appearing on every road, they’re not just an eye sore, they’re a message to our kids about the type of future we want for them.
And there is something deeply wrong about the fact that Britain’s poorest communities are so often the ones most crowded with gambling shops, piling even more pressure on places already grappling with poverty, debt and poor health.
I won’t have that – so we’re giving councils the powers they need to get a grip of them.
On betting shops, we intend to scrap the “aim to permit” rule that for too long has left councils powerless to respond to local concerns, even when communities have voiced fears that clustering of gambling premises is causing harm. If local people don’t want them there, they won’t be allowed to open. It’s as simple as that.
And on vape shops, we’re closing the loopholes that have allowed them to open without planning permission, so communities get a proper say before another one pops up on their high street. That’s on top of new rules we’re introducing to stop them opening near schools.
We’re also coming down hard on the dodgy businesses exploiting our high streets. Whether it’s a vape shop, a rogue barber or something else, where businesses are being used as a front for organised crime, police will now have the power to close them for longer, giving them more time to gather the information they need to shut them down for good.
These changes are about giving local people something they lost a while back: the power to say no. They’re about wrestling back the control taken from our communities decades ago and finally giving them a proper say on what happens to the places they call home.
But they’re also just the beginning. Because saying no is only half the job. We don’t just want fewer vape and betting shops. We want more butchers, bakers and bookshops – the businesses that make a high street feel like home.
And that means giving communities the power to say yes too – and making it easier for the businesses we want to set up shop on our hight streets. Local people know what their town needs to get moving again. They know what will bring people in, what will create good jobs, and what will give young people a reason to stay. Give them the power and tools to do those things, and the investment and opportunity will follow.
And when a place starts to thrive, it’s high street will too. So the next time someone shows you around the town they grew up in, there’s a little less “that used to be” and a lot more “look what’s here now.”
