Government response to the Portas Review

Mar 30, 2012 Peter Rabbit General News Comments Off on Government response to the Portas Review

March 30, 2012 from communities.gov.uk

In what Mr Shapps referred to as a 'Portas-Plus' response, a new package of help has been drawn up

The Government today is for the first time issuing its formal response to the Portas High Street Review.

Towns across the country have got their applications in ahead of today’s deadline in the hope of becoming Portas Pilots. Ministers revealed the unexpectedly high level of interest whilst announcing that the Government is accepting virtually all the recommendations put forward by Mary Portas last December.

Grant Shapps confirmed Ministers are accepting the vast majority of Mary’s recommendations – but that they intend to go further with a raft of new incentives, funding schemes and bureaucracy-busting measures, all in a bid to rejuvenate the country’s rundown high streets.

In what Mr Shapps referred to as a ‘Portas-Plus’ response, a new package of help has been drawn up including:

A multi-million pound High Street Innovation Fund – kick started by £10 million of taxpayers money focussed on bringing empty shops back into use – which, if supplemented by both councils and landlords, could see £30 million going to support new business start-ups whilst bringing empty High Street properties back into use;
A £1 million Future High Street X-Fund, which will be awarded in a year’s time to the locations which deliver the most creative and effective schemes to revitalise their high streets;
A National Markets Day, launching a National Markets Fortnight, to celebrate the role markets can play, help aspiring entrepreneurs try out their business ideas, and encourage more visitors to town centres;
A £500,000 fund for Business Improvement Districts, to help Town Centres access loans for their set-up costs; and
Launching a further round of Portas Pilots, to trial some of Mary’s recommendations and come up with new ideas to breathe life into underused high streets. This is in response to the massive interest from hundreds of locations across the country, sparked by the competition for the first wave of 12 pilots launched last month.

Grant Shapps said:

“Today, I’m accepting virtually all of the recommendations from Mary Portas’s review – but I’m also going that one step further, offering a ‘Portas-Plus’ deal, with a range of measures designed to help local people turn their high streets into the beating hearts of their communities once again.

“Mary Portas’s review made crystal clear the stark challenge our high streets face. With Internet shopping and out-of-town centres here to stay, they must offer something new if they are to entice visitors back.

“Her report has provided the catalyst for change that many towns have been craving. I now want to see people coming together to form their own town teams and turning their creative ideas into reality to ensure their high streets thrive long into the future.”

Martin Blackwell, chief executive at the Association of Town Centre Management, said:

“We all recognise that the high street in 10 or even five years will be radically different to that we see today. This Government’s approach, shown in the response to Mary’s report, is giving local communities the opportunity to shape the future High Street they want to see in their town.”

Responding to the first recommendation in the review, Mr Shapps said he wanted to see hundreds of Town Teams – made up of key players in the local area including the council, local landlords, business owners and local MPs – being formed and mobilised across the country to drive forward the necessary change.

He encouraged these Town Teams to consider:

How their high streets can become the “beating heart of the community”, offering more than just retail with entertainment venues and leisure facilities, as well as housing and local public services;
How they can work with councils to use the forthcoming new powers to offer local business rate discounts, and to ensure businesses are aware of the option to spread the payment of the retail price index increase in business rates bills over three years, giving them the flexibility to manage their bills and help their cash- flow. This is in addition to Small Business Rate Relief, which in England has been doubled for two years, from 1 October 2010 to 30 September 2012;
How they could stimulate a vibrant evening economy by encouraging local shops to open later, offering a service to people as they come home from work, instead of people resorting to online shopping; and
How they could make more imaginative and exciting use of public spaces and remove street clutter to make town centres more pleasant for visitors.

And confirming the Government was accepting a number of other key recommendations to cut red tape and entice motorists to the town centre, Mr Shapps gave a commitment to:

Help councils revoke unnecessary and archaic byelaws through a new streamlined process – enabling outdated rules hindering efforts to get new markets and businesses up and running to be swiftly scrapped;
Reform current planning rules to allow the conversion of space above shops to two flats, rather than the current limit of one; and
Consult on abolishing centrally-set minimum parking charges, to give councils the flexibility to levy lower parking penalty notices if they choose. The Government will also take steps to ensure greater transparency on parking charges to introduce greater competition between town centres.

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