17 January 2012
Across the UK whilst some high streets continue to thrive, a third are degenerating or failing, and by 2014 less than 40% of retail spending will be on the high street. With town centre vacancy rates doubling in the space of two years this is something we are all starting to see across the country and it is hitting the rural economy too. In the Mid Norfolk towns of Wymondham, Attleborough, Dereham, and Watton we can see market towns facing the same problems: traffic congestions and inconvenient parking, the closure of popular high street shops and dominance of charity shops, loss of customers to superstores, and most importantly a loss of confidence.
Responding to the urgency of the challenges facing market towns, today George Freeman, MP for Mid Norfolk, joined a Parliamentary debate in the House on the future of the high street.
Speaking in the debate George Freeman said:
“There is no getting around the fact that in our busy, modern working lives, time pressures increasingly mean that the ‘one stop’ shopping experience of the weekly supermarket visit is here to stay. We need to adopt a policy which combines this reality and invites visitors to our high streets, and towns like Wymondham, for different reasons. We need to capitalise on our heritage and bring in local trade to cafes and craft shops, but to achieve this vision for our towns we urgently need to rectify the issue of traffic and parking and offer a safe and, perhaps in places, pedestrianised town experience.”
Commenting after the debate George Freeman added:
“Whilst there are challenges facing our high streets, there ought also to be a lot of positives. We continue to see large shifts of people choosing to live in rural Norfolk and more people also deciding to work from home. They all need meeting places, particularly those working from home, and towns need to be looking at how to attract these new customers as part of their plans. As ever it’s a case of making the experience of visiting our towns easier, with better transport links, parking, and more choice. Learning lessons from around the country can help to show us what can be done.
Town centres are key to the rural economy and our community and important to us all. On Friday the strength of public feeling will be shown at a public consultation I am chairing for South Norfolk Council. That 300 people are expected to attend to discuss their priorities for Wymondham shows how much we care.”
FULL TEXT OF GEORGE'S SPEECH
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con): I add my name to the list of those congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) on securing this important debate and I congratulate the Backbench Business Committee on arranging it. At this stage of the debate, there is little left to add to the excellent contributions of so many hon. Members, particularly of my hon. Friends. I want to highlight one or two of the concerns I share with others for my Mid Norfolk constituency, but as we move to the close I want to focus on some of the positives, as I believe there are a number of reasons for being positive about the future of our market towns, particularly our rural market towns.
Mid Norfolk is not an affluent constituency. We are not part of the celebrated Norfolk triangle, and we are not part of the “gold coast”; Burnham market is a long way from my constituency. Our average income is about £17,500 a year; we have four market towns and 114 villages. Many of the problems described today are all too evident as one travels in Dereham, my capital, the ancient heart of Norfolk. We have recently seen the closure of Chambers, the celebrated and historic store. I was recently delighted to receive a petition from the town’s residents to the Co-op, asking it to change its decision to close.
In Wymondham, home of the great abbey and the place of Robert Kett’s rebellion, I have the pleasure this Friday of chairing a meeting at which 400 residents are due to come to talk about the town’s plan, as it faces an application from Asda for a development in the middle of the town. There is a huge appetite to discuss issues around sustainable development, facilities for the young and the old, and ensuring that we have a genuine long-term plan that looks at the needs of Wymondham over the next 20 years—not just for Wymondham either, but for the surrounding villages that rely on it, too.
In Attleborough, zoned for development under Labour’s regional spatial strategy and to be doubled in size with 4,000 houses, the challenge is to come up with the right
17 Jan 2012 : Column 704
level of growth that can provide the infrastructure levy that will fund the bypass we need, while keeping Attleborough as the beautiful market town in which people want to live and work. In Watton, the heart of the Wayland valley, there are huge pressures on the high street, with closures of traditional stores and huge local concern that the town centre is losing its viability.
Why, then, am I optimistic? After several decades in which our town centres, in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), have been “woefully badly catered for”, I believe that we have serious grounds to be optimistic. First, because people care—and such care has been demonstrated today in the level, strength and depth of opinion voiced in this debate, while our residents also care, as evidenced by the 300 or 400 people due to turn up on Wymondham on Friday evening.
Secondly, I am confident because around the country there are inspiring examples of enlightened local council leaders, town councils, residents associations and, indeed, of best practice, which have shown that it is possible to combine the one-stop shop convenience of an out-of-town supermarket that people with busy lives need with the heritage, community and authentic local community experience of a well run and well organised town centre. These things are not beyond the wit of man.
I am confident, thirdly, because of the Government’s measures, including the Localism Bill, community planning measures, the big society, the emphasis on the rebalanced economy, the localisation of business rates and the support for small business generally.
Fourthly, I am confident because the public themselves are showing in their retail habits a growing demand for the local, the artisanal, the authentic and for an increased interest and involvement in the retail experience seen as an authentic part of the community of which they are part. I am confident, fifthly, because of the measures on broadband.
In my Mid Norfolk constituency we might have been neglected by successive Governments for 30 or 40 years, but if we put all these measures together, along with the investment in the Cambridge-Norwich railway line, in the A11, in rural broadband and in science at the Norwich research park, I would submit that our area is on the cusp of a renaissance—a renaissance that we describe and seek to promote locally through a project called the Norfolk way, a renaissance of small businesses coming back to the countryside in converted barns and converted turkey sheds, empowered with globally competitive information technology and trading between the hubs of Cambridge and Norwich.
If we can have a vibrant rural economy, we will have a chance to have vibrant market towns. For no one are those market towns more important than for the people trading in the rural economy. I close with the suggestion that we can be optimistic provided that we take the energy of today and channel it into the enlightened policies of tomorrow.
| Hansard
Responding to the urgency of the challenges facing market towns, today George Freeman, MP for Mid Norfolk, joined a Parliamentary debate in the House on the future of the high street.
Speaking in the debate George Freeman said:
“There is no getting around the fact that in our busy, modern working lives, time pressures increasingly mean that the ‘one stop’ shopping experience of the weekly supermarket visit is here to stay. We need to adopt a policy which combines this reality and invites visitors to our high streets, and towns like Wymondham, for different reasons. We need to capitalise on our heritage and bring in local trade to cafes and craft shops, but to achieve this vision for our towns we urgently need to rectify the issue of traffic and parking and offer a safe and, perhaps in places, pedestrianised town experience.”
Commenting after the debate George Freeman added:
“Whilst there are challenges facing our high streets, there ought also to be a lot of positives. We continue to see large shifts of people choosing to live in rural Norfolk and more people also deciding to work from home. They all need meeting places, particularly those working from home, and towns need to be looking at how to attract these new customers as part of their plans. As ever it’s a case of making the experience of visiting our towns easier, with better transport links, parking, and more choice. Learning lessons from around the country can help to show us what can be done.
Town centres are key to the rural economy and our community and important to us all. On Friday the strength of public feeling will be shown at a public consultation I am chairing for South Norfolk Council. That 300 people are expected to attend to discuss their priorities for Wymondham shows how much we care.”
FULL TEXT OF GEORGE'S SPEECH
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con): I add my name to the list of those congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) on securing this important debate and I congratulate the Backbench Business Committee on arranging it. At this stage of the debate, there is little left to add to the excellent contributions of so many hon. Members, particularly of my hon. Friends. I want to highlight one or two of the concerns I share with others for my Mid Norfolk constituency, but as we move to the close I want to focus on some of the positives, as I believe there are a number of reasons for being positive about the future of our market towns, particularly our rural market towns.
Mid Norfolk is not an affluent constituency. We are not part of the celebrated Norfolk triangle, and we are not part of the “gold coast”; Burnham market is a long way from my constituency. Our average income is about £17,500 a year; we have four market towns and 114 villages. Many of the problems described today are all too evident as one travels in Dereham, my capital, the ancient heart of Norfolk. We have recently seen the closure of Chambers, the celebrated and historic store. I was recently delighted to receive a petition from the town’s residents to the Co-op, asking it to change its decision to close.
In Wymondham, home of the great abbey and the place of Robert Kett’s rebellion, I have the pleasure this Friday of chairing a meeting at which 400 residents are due to come to talk about the town’s plan, as it faces an application from Asda for a development in the middle of the town. There is a huge appetite to discuss issues around sustainable development, facilities for the young and the old, and ensuring that we have a genuine long-term plan that looks at the needs of Wymondham over the next 20 years—not just for Wymondham either, but for the surrounding villages that rely on it, too.
In Attleborough, zoned for development under Labour’s regional spatial strategy and to be doubled in size with 4,000 houses, the challenge is to come up with the right
17 Jan 2012 : Column 704
level of growth that can provide the infrastructure levy that will fund the bypass we need, while keeping Attleborough as the beautiful market town in which people want to live and work. In Watton, the heart of the Wayland valley, there are huge pressures on the high street, with closures of traditional stores and huge local concern that the town centre is losing its viability.
Why, then, am I optimistic? After several decades in which our town centres, in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), have been “woefully badly catered for”, I believe that we have serious grounds to be optimistic. First, because people care—and such care has been demonstrated today in the level, strength and depth of opinion voiced in this debate, while our residents also care, as evidenced by the 300 or 400 people due to turn up on Wymondham on Friday evening.
Secondly, I am confident because around the country there are inspiring examples of enlightened local council leaders, town councils, residents associations and, indeed, of best practice, which have shown that it is possible to combine the one-stop shop convenience of an out-of-town supermarket that people with busy lives need with the heritage, community and authentic local community experience of a well run and well organised town centre. These things are not beyond the wit of man.
I am confident, thirdly, because of the Government’s measures, including the Localism Bill, community planning measures, the big society, the emphasis on the rebalanced economy, the localisation of business rates and the support for small business generally.
Fourthly, I am confident because the public themselves are showing in their retail habits a growing demand for the local, the artisanal, the authentic and for an increased interest and involvement in the retail experience seen as an authentic part of the community of which they are part. I am confident, fifthly, because of the measures on broadband.
In my Mid Norfolk constituency we might have been neglected by successive Governments for 30 or 40 years, but if we put all these measures together, along with the investment in the Cambridge-Norwich railway line, in the A11, in rural broadband and in science at the Norwich research park, I would submit that our area is on the cusp of a renaissance—a renaissance that we describe and seek to promote locally through a project called the Norfolk way, a renaissance of small businesses coming back to the countryside in converted barns and converted turkey sheds, empowered with globally competitive information technology and trading between the hubs of Cambridge and Norwich.
If we can have a vibrant rural economy, we will have a chance to have vibrant market towns. For no one are those market towns more important than for the people trading in the rural economy. I close with the suggestion that we can be optimistic provided that we take the energy of today and channel it into the enlightened policies of tomorrow.
| Hansard
