Future of Town Centres and High Streets

This is what happens when someone represents North Wiltshire for 15 years. In that speech, I went to some lengths to address some of the issues that we are talking about, namely that my constituency had a number of small market towns surrounded by beautiful rural countryside, and how we could prevent that countryside from being built on. That shows both that nothing changes and, I hope, that I have done a reasonable job of living up to my promise and preventing developers from building all over my beautiful constituency. My constituency provides a case study of these issues; indeed Mary Portas or others might want to use it as a case study or it could be part of one of her pilot studies. We have a variety of market towns, some of which have more flourishing high streets than others. The most famous of those high streets, internationally, at the moment is that of Royal Wootton Bassett, where we have a superb community spirit. Why do we have that spirit? Because Royal Wootton Bassett has a flourishing, vibrant high street and no out-of-town shopping. There is a very good Sainsbury's, which is 100 yards away from the town hall at which we all stood in silent remembrance of our passing fallen soldiers until very recently. Equally, in the town of Calne, we have a first-class supermarket right in the town centre. In Malmesbury so far we have no out-of-town shopping, but in the neighbouring town of Chippenham, which is just outside my constituency, there is a large number of out-of-town shopping centres and I am afraid that Chippenham high street is not as vibrant and great a place as it once was. I expect that my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Duncan Hames), who I think will be speaking in a moment or two, will seek to explain why that should be. This is not just about shopping, it is also about housing. Chippenham is currently looking to expand by 4,000 or 5,000 houses. This very afternoon, people in Trowbridge at Wiltshire council's headquarters are considering a strategic way forward for areas such as the Birds Marsh estate, which is just outside my hon. Friend's constituency but in my constituency. I very much hope that they will listen to local people, some 600 or 700 of whom have said they want no further expansion of the town of Chippenham into my constituency. The same issues apply elsewhere. We have to keep our high streets vibrant by preventing developers from spreading out into the countryside. That brings me finally to a very interesting case in point—the town of Malmesbury. At the moment, two applications are in place, one from Waitrose and one from Sainsbury's, to build out-of-town shopping centres outside Malmesbury. They claim those centres would provide x hundred new jobs, and of course they might, but in reality they would be jobs that currently exist. They claim that Malmesbury would benefit under section 106 agreements because there would be buses from Sainsbury's car park into the town centre and there would be a staircase from the Waitrose up to the town centre. They say, ““There would be all sorts of benefits for the people of Malmesbury. Aren't they lucky to have us, Sainsbury's and Waitrose, coming to build in the town?”” But, no, we are not lucky at all. Waitrose and Sainsbury's are going there for one reason only: to make a profit for their shareholders out of selling groceries to passing trade. That is of no benefit whatever to the town of Malmesbury, and I very much hope that the local authority, when it considers this matter, will turn down both applications—from Waitrose and Sainsbury's. Malmesbury has a vibrant and superb high street with a great community, which is not dissimilar from that in neighbouring Royal Wootton Bassett. If we allow the building of two new supermarkets on the outskirts of the town or of housing, which has also been threatened around the outskirts of Malmesbury, we will land up with urban sprawl of the worst possible kind and with a reduction in the vibrancy of the high street, which would become similar to those in one or two other towns in our area. I appeal to the planners who are sitting in Trowbridge this very afternoon considering these matters to realise that if we allow developers to build on greenfield sites, that is precisely what they will do because they want to build on greenfield sites. Only by preventing them from doing so will we force them to build in our town centres, to redevelop brownfield sites and to redevelop and add vibrancy to our town centres.