Future of Town Centres and High Streets

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. She is absolutely right. However, if I had a choice between being in Devon or Chiswick on a Saturday, I know which one I would choose. [Hon. Members: ““Oh!””] I suspect that most of my colleagues would say exactly the same thing. I thought that it would be helpful if, drawing on this excellent report and my experiences over the past 20 years, I came up with the five golden rules for regenerating our town centres and high streets. The first is to have local leadership. The hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) spoke eloquently about what the Government should do, but let us talk about what the local community should do. Bottom-up local leadership is crucial in sparking the regeneration of our town centres and high streets. I give the example of Ivybridge town council, which already has in place a neighbourhood plan and has engaged the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment to come up with a brand new vision for the town centre.