Local MP Mark Spencer Continues Battle to Save Our Highstreets (18th January, 2012)
Member of Parliament for Sherwood Mark Spencer spoke yesterday in the House of Commons in a debate on how to save our highstreets. Having hosted a Heart of Hucknall summit last October which brought together traders and cross party councillors, Mark is calling on local authorities to take some basic steps to support local business.
Mark said: In certain towns it may be possible to convert some properties from retail to residential use and thus shrink the high street, to make a more concentrated area of shops, where we can address their quality, fill the empty ones with shops from the periphery and allow for the residential use of the peripheral properties. That would have the knock-on effect of taking the pressure off the green belt around our towns, and we could include residential areas on our high streets.
Speaking about encouraging new businesses, Mark discussed the problem of landlords charging steep highstreet rentals and called on them to be fairer and more realistic in their demands when they are approached by individual retailers about empty properties, the rent that they want to charge and the length of the lease that they want to offer on shops can sometimes be an enormous challenge to anybody wanting to start a small business.
Consumers must also take responsibility for their highstreet by considering their behaviour: The strapline for this debate should be Use it or lose it.
Mark Spencer MP
Sherwood Constituency Office, Room 3, Under One Roof,
3A Vine Terrace, Hucknall, Nottingham, NG15 7HN
Phone: 0115 968 1186
