Mary Portas was commissioned by the Prime Minister to research and recommend how the high street can be rescued from decay. In her report she recommends a range of planning policy incentives along with free parking in town centres to lure shoppers back to the high street.
Is there any proposal by the Council to seek assistance from the government to commence the implementation of the recommendations in Medway and especially in Strood?
Minutes:
Mary Portas was commissioned by the Prime Minister to research and recommend how the High Street can be rescued from decay. In her report she recommends a range of planning policy incentives along with free parking in town centres to lure shoppers back to the High Street.
Is there any proposal by the Council to seek assistance from the government to commence the implementation of the recommendations in Medway and especially in Strood?
Councillor Chitty responded by stating that Mary Portas submitted her independent review into the future of our high streets on 14 December 2011 – less than a month ago. The Government had welcomed her report and stated that it would set out its formal response to it in the spring.
The report contained 28 recommendations, most of which would require legislative changes or action at a national level so therefore the Council was not in a position to be able to implement them. The Council would carefully monitor the reaction to the report and would consider whether to work in partnership with government or take part in any new initiatives that might emerge. On the issue of parking, Mary Portas recommended local areas should implement free controlled parking schemes that work for their town centres. Councillor Chitty stated that the Council had already been running a successful free parking scheme in the run up to Christmas and that the Council had one of the lowest parking charges in Kent. She referred to her response to the earlier question by stating that any considerations concerning continuation of free parking was subject to the usual budget setting process.
She stated that one of the elements that should be taken into account was that the new bus facility had made it a great deal easier for people to come into Chatham and they had been very appreciative of it. She also referred to the latest figures for shop vacancies in Medway town centres: Chatham which did stand at 13% was now 12%, Strood was 7%, Gillingham 12.5%, Rochester had come down from 8% to 6%, Rainham had come down from 6% to 5%. She stated that the national average was 14.6%. Whilst there would be fluctuations throughout the year this indicated that the town centres, and more importantly the people that operated their retail businesses there, were working very hard to make themselves more successful than elsewhere.
Councillor Igwe asked a supplementary question in that given that the Prime Minister actually commissioned the Mary Portas project, it was most likely that he was going to accept it, so was it possible that the Council would be persuading the landlords of the High Streets to reduce the rent in line with what Mary Portas recommended?
Councillor Chitty responded that whilst she was very sympathetic to that opinion, there were a number of retail properties where the rents constantly increased. The Council was not in a position to have any input in that. However, if the government made it possible, through primary legislation, to fix rents then that would be something that the Council would work with. The Council would sign up to any legal opportunities that might come from the government. She stated that it would be very difficult to implement some of Mary Portas’s recommendations but the Council would continue to promote retail and she looked forward to Councillor Igwe’s support when any such opportunity arose.