Future of Town Centres and High Streets

The whole debate so far has reminded me of when I was waiting to make my maiden speech, listening to potted descriptions of every town and city in the country, learning a lot about geography as well as politics. I shall now do roughly the same thing, talking from a city perspective about my Bristol West constituency, which covers the whole city centre and the shopping centres of Broadmead and Cabot Circus in the regional capital of the south-west of England. The constituency is also a patchwork of distinct neighbourhood shopping centres and high streets, bookended by Clifton village and Stapleton road, with the unique areas of Park street, Whiteladies road and Gloucester road running through the middle. Gloucester road may not be the oldest high street in England but it is certainly the longest. It has been argued in many media outlets that it is the greatest high street in England, with 2 miles of independent shops. In the 1990s, as you will be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, as a fellow Bristol Member, our city centre faced great challenges from out of town, but it has fought back. Bristol city council worked in partnership with the private sector and we have a new shopping centre, but more important, thousands of people now live in the heart of the city of Bristol. I do not think it has been mentioned in the debate that we need more residents in town and city centres. I certainly endorse the recommendations in the Portas report for town centre teams and for a presumption in favour of town and city centres in the planning regime. High streets, whether in cities or towns, certainly face multiple challenges; indeed, as has been said, they are at crisis point. Rationing of parking spaces has been referred to. Control of crime is another issue, as is the switch to online retailing. Every time I make my traditional Christmas visit to the Montpelier Royal Mail sorting centre, I am struck by the sheer number of Amazon parcels of the books and DVDs my constituents are buying. The other major threat to all our high streets and locally owned businesses comes from the large national chains and multiples. Supermarkets have been mentioned many times during the debate so I shall not say too much more about them, but I am probably the only Member in the Chamber who has experienced a riot in his constituency caused by the opening of a branch of Tesco. It took place over the Easter and royal wedding bank holidays in April last year. I certainly do not condone the antics of those constituents, but I very much share their frustration. Large businesses do not work with the grain of local opinion. It was not that people did not want a Tesco; they just did not want another Tesco in an area where the brand was already at saturation point. There are also national chains of bars, restaurants and cafes. They use their lawyers and large planning departments to circumvent local authority planning decisions. In my constituency, we have an example involving Costa Coffee—a brand owned by Whitbread, the brewers—which has opened three outlets in Bristol; in Gloucester road in my constituency, in Clifton Down and in Westbury village in the neighbouring constituency of Bristol North West. The company has flouted the decisions of Bristol city council; Costa's managing director wrote to me to say that Costa was ““re-energising and revitalising”” high streets and"““regularly complements independent retailers…to offer a wider range of choice.””" That sort of banality infuriates local residents when they think they cannot work with the system to get what they want. We certainly need to reform the planning system to combat uniformity and promote diversity.