I warmly welcome Plaid’s campaign to make the “Town Centre heart of our community”. Let's be brutally honest the small towns of Monmouth constituency and elsewhere in Wales have suffered in the past from ill-thought out developments and questionable short term economic thinking; local small to medium retailers and businesses and local consumers have suffered accordingly and ultimately we the consumers have paid the price with a loss of local services and choice.
Yet all is not lost, locally in Monmouth constituency, the continuing campaign to retain the livestock market in Abergavenny shows that many people have real and serious concerns about the economic future and the character of their communities. Now we have to ask ourselves and Monmouthshire County Council some serious questions about who these decisions in relation to redevelopment are being made for? And why? And who really benefits, locally or otherwise, certainly not us the customers?
Plaid Honorary president Dafydd Wigley said:
“Town centres have an invaluable role to play, aside from attracting visitors, they are also play a vital economic and social role. Many of the most vulnerable people in our communities lack the means to access the large out of town developments and rely heavily on smaller, local shops. We all need to work together to ensure that our town centres have a viable future. Local councils, the Assembly government and the UK government must all take steps, but this won’t achieve anything if the community itself doesn’t get involved and support our local, town centre businesses. The UK government needs to work together with the Welsh and local government to introduce policies to sustain our town centres. For too long the London government has left small businesses to fend for themselves while they prop up big business. Despite bailing out the banks, many small businesses are unable to secure the credit they need to survive. This cannot be allowed to continue and this is why Plaid is calling for action now to put our town centres back at the heart of our communities.”
Plaid has outlined a number of proposals to put town centres back at the heart of our communities including:
• the extension of credit union principles to support small and medium sized businesses
• a change in planning regulations to promote sustainable communities
• a mandatory retail impact assessment with each major planning development
• a level playing field for smaller, local businesses
The Times (27th October 2009) reported that in 705 town centres that had been surveyed, 10 per cent of shops failed between January and September of 2009. While it would be easy to see this merely as a cold, hard financial fact, of jobs and business and a direct result of the free market, there is more to it than that.
Shops are more than merely the places we go to in order to buy; they are the unacknowledged secular hubs of our communities. It has long been noted that recessions change the way we shop, the collective, tightening of belts brings about a well-documented shift from specialist shopping, in butchers and bookshops, to a different model, whereby customers visit one superstore for a variety of needs.
While this may be an understandable short to medium term consequence of economic uncertainty, the consequences may be pretty long term, maybe (and maybe is the key word here) when things improve economically and collective wallets are loosened again, then shoppers will abandon their necessary economy drive, and return to smaller local outlets once more. However, for that to happen, the local shops and small businesses need to still be in business.
The Times survey revealed that those businesses suffering the most are the ones that make one community different from the next. More than a thousand bookshops have closed, almost three quarters of them independents. Britain has lost at least 233 florists, and 1,146 corner shops. At least 1,136 pubs have closed, as have 4,143 restaurants and cafes, and 2,201 hairdressers – however you spin it, and spin is the key word here, having sat a listened to Tesco’s spin doctor (at a recent party conference) claim that his company helped to stimulate local economies but enabling local niche businesses to emerge, presumably after Tesco has trashed or mopped up (take your pick) the local economy and put local shops and local businesses out of business that is.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) - and they should know - has noted that the UK is losing 2,000 local shops every year and that of this rate of loss continues then by 2015, less than 5 years hence, there will be no independent retailers left in business, something that will badly hit both consumers and our communities hard as they lose any real choice in the marketplace and lose potential local job opportunities.
Over the last twenty five years, we have all seen the commercial hearts of many of our communities have been seriously damaged as a result of a combination of aggressive policies pursued by the larger retail chains and exceptionally poor decision making on the part of local government and central government indifference. The result of the abject failure or indifference of local and central government to develop realistic local economic plans and a failure to create a level playing field for local businesses and suppliers, has been combined with some very questionable planning decisions over the last thirty years, has directly lead to many of our town centre's being "regenerated" to death.
The rise in the number of shops owned by larger retail chains damages the local economy, drains profit out of the area to remote corporate headquarters and reduces local job opportunities. Ten pound spent in a local business circulates in the local economy three times longer than if it is spent in a non local business. A real side effect of this is a real loss of a sense of community, a loss of local character as our high streets has lead to our high streets losing lost their distinctive local shops which have been replaced by “micro-format” supermarket or chain store branches and any real loss of choice for the customers.
The Assembly Government, recently commissioned a review of planning in Wales, saying that there was a need to simplify the system, but, this should not take place at the expense of fundamentally damaging democratic control of the planning process. Any plans to speed up the planning process should not at the cost of creating unsustainable developments that further damage our high streets and our communities.
There is a real necessity that We work together to ensure that our town centres have a viable future. Local councils, the Assembly government and the UK government must all take concrete steps, but this won’t achieve anything if the community itself doesn’t get involved and support our local, town centre businesses. The UK government needs to work together with the Welsh and local government to introduce policies to sustain our town centres.
For far too long successive Conservative and New Labour London government's have left small businesses to fend for themselves while they prop up big business and their friends in the City. Despite the recent bail out the banks, many small businesses are still having problems securing the necessary credit they need to survive. This cannot be allowed to continue and this is why Plaid is calling for action now to put our town centres back at the heart of our communities.
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