Harrogate Chamber Hustings : Your Questions Answered
What Is The Future Of The High Street?
In preparation for the General Election to be held in less than 2 weeks, we hosted a Hustings of our own with 6 of the 7 candidates standing in the Harrogate & District constituency in attendance. This week we will reflect on the questions asked and the answers given.
The next question came from Matthew Chapman of Harrogate Business Improvement District. He asked:
There has been a lot of talk post Covid on the future of the high street. What will your party deliver to support a future Harrogate offer to support not only Harrogate as a vibrant destination but for residents too?
Paul Haslam (Independent):
The key thing for Harrogate is to create its own retail stamp, and create an area and enable all the, what I call local stores - the stores that make the town different and make it attractive. Now, I think Ripon is in the top 10 towns to come to because of all the independent shops there. We need to do the same here in Harrogate. The Conference Centre brings between a 250,000 and 300,000 people to the town in a year, so if we’ve got great retail offers, we will get people into those shops too!
Andrew Jones (Conservative):
Town centres are changing, and Harrogate’s is no exception. The key reason why they’re changing is that an enormous amount of retail is going online. We therefore need to build several different things. Firstly, a bigger brand for Harrogate. We also must recognise that as we evolve, we’re going to have more variety of businesses within a town centre, and town centre living. We need to improve our environment. So, in policy terms that means changing some of the planning regulations so people can adapt business needs more easily. It means making sure that we have more transport that will bring people into our town centre. We must make sure that we recognise things are changing and be at the forefront of the change rather than denying it happens. But we have all the ingredients and that’s what we need to work with.
Shan Oakes (Green):
Harrogate should be special, and we could do a lot more than we are doing to make it special. For example, I was involved a couple of years ago with taking up the plastic grass which was put down around town centre trees by Harrogate Borough Council. We put perennials in which were less work and better for bees. So that was just one example where we thought, why doesn't Harrogate have a bit more vision as a whole town because passers-by liked the difference that we were making. It's a fantastic town and I think we need to be able to have more imagination. I hope there’ll be far more residential living in the middle of town as more shops and offices move out - this will make it more dynamic and bring people in. I think we should not be always worrying about whether we can bring our cars in because cars in a town don't mix very well with people.
John Swales (Reform):
I come from a family of small business owners, and I've worked in the businesses, so I know how hard it is. To everyone who runs a small business and sole traders, I take my hat off to you - you're up against it. You’ve been crippled with legislation and high taxes that mean sometimes you’re working for nothing. Our policy is to free you from the burden of legislation, reduce corporation tax and remove business rates, replacing it with a 4% online sales tax, because the scales need levelling out; small businesses are suffering because online businesses are stealing your lifeblood.
Conrad Whitcroft (Labour):
The High Street has changed massively, and we all saw that happen during Covid. To make it more vibrant is you simply need to have a plan. The Labour Party has got that plan in place when it comes to things like local control, allowing local people to decide what their high street's going to be for. We need to make sure that we have a pro planning system so that change of use can happen more easily so that new shops can be opened more easily and split residency and that sort of thing. Labour's plan is to scrap business rates and replace it with something more workable is the key. It doesn't make sense that people in bricks and mortar businesses are paying loads and loads out through business rates when large companies like Amazon paying next to nothing. That needs to stop. We need to make sure we have a stronger public transport system. We need crack down on antisocial behaviour and make our towns safe again. Labour's plan to recruit 13,000 more police officers will do that. We need a plan. I think Labour's got that plan and we can deliver it.
Tom Gordon (Lib Dem):
There's a few different things that I'll touch on, but the first one must be just giving the country a little bit of stability. The last few years have been difficult to say the least, and that’s down to some external factors like the war in Ukraine and Covid. But what we have seen is when help and support has been rolled out, it's not been on a level playing field. For example, there were two million people excluded from furlough. There should have been s safety net for everyone, no matter what their business or whether they’re self-employed or otherwise. The other big thing that we’ve said, like Reform is doing away with business rates; they hamper and hinder local businesses and we’d like to see a fairer system which would be on the landowner rather than the tenant. As someone who’s been banging the drum about shopping local, I put my money where my mouth is by supporting local businesses and speaking with them. That's something that I think is essential in an MP who's going to raise a profile of our high streets and learn more about what can be done to support them. We also need schemes like we saw when we had issues with energy prices, making sure they’re a lot more comprehensive and easier to access and funding that through a windfall tax on the oil, gas and giants who have made record profits.
We would like to thank all candidates for participating in a lively and engaging discussion, and all those who asked such pertinent questions.
Thanks also to John Plummer for facilitating the meeting and Pavilions of Harrogate for hosting.
Written by Zach Greaves - Chamber Press Secretary
