AUSTIN INVITES ‘MINISTER FOR THE HIGH STREET’ TO DUDLEY

Dudley North MP Ian Austin, has invited Government Minister Grant Shapps, the man charged with reviving the British High Street, to visit Dudley and see the challenges the town faces.

Shapps commissioned the review by Queen of Shops, Mary Portas, which published its findings last month. One of the recommendations was that a number of towns should be selected to run pilot schemes to test its recommendations. Austin believes Dudley would be an ideal candidate and has written to the Minister to ask him to select the town.

Austin met Portas in Westminster in October and shared the results of a constituency survey on the state of Dudley high street. The survey showed strong support for more parking and support for lowering business rates and bringing empty shops back into use.

Ian Austin MP said:

“I think we’ve got to be much more ambitious for our town and come up with a new plan to bring people to Dudley.

“I’ve invited the Minister to Dudley and I’ve also asked him to consider making Dudley one of the locations of the review’s pilot schemes. I think we’d really benefit from the opportunity to test out innovative thinking and it would prove to people in Dudley that with a combination of optimism and new thinking, the high street could have a bright future.

“As the Portas review points out there are no silver bullets or easy answers, but the recommendations, particularly those on cutting red tape, lowering business rates and changing planning laws to encourage new developments are good ones, and could make a positive difference here and elsewhere.”

NOTES

Hansard transcript:

Austin (Dudley North) (Lab): Does he agree that Dudley town centre would be ideal for one of the pilot studies resulting from Mary Portas’s review? Does he agree that the Minister should select Dudley for one of the pilots and that the Minister ought to come to Dudley so that I can take him around the town centre and he can see for himself the problems we face?

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201212/cmhansrd/cm120117/debtext/120117-0001.htm#12011733000546