Keir Starmer will this week unveil a shake-up to town planning to give communities more control over where stores can open and how many there can be in their towns
Local people will be given powers to block new vaping and gambling shops under plans to revive Britain’s high streets.
Keir Starmer will this week unveil a shake-up to town planning to give communities more control over where stores can open and how many there can be in their towns.
The PM is expected to announce a new injection of funds to back reforms, with some money going to local councils and some straight into the community for projects.
Ministers are also looking at accelerating ways communities can take ownership of empty shops so they don’t end up with rows of vape shops, gambling shops and barbers on their high streets.
READ MORE: Labour MPs take fight to Reform with ‘bread and butter’ projects
In his first interview since replacing Angela Rayner as Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary, Steve Reed told the Sunday Telegraph: “The country is not working for far too many people who are in it, people and regions are not sharing in Britain’s prosperity equally.
“We’ve got a lot of communities that feel they don’t have a voice. They’ve been ignored, they’ve been left behind and they’re not getting any investment.
“This is about supporting those communities to take back control, restore pride in the places where they’re living, and give them the power and resources to make their areas more successful.”
Vape shops on England’s high streets have increased by almost 1,200% over the past decade, according to a study released by Health Equity North in the summer. It also found deprived areas have up to 25 times as many bookmakers and pawnbrokers as richer places.
Amid the rise of Nigel Farage ’s Reform UK, Labour MPs have been trying to focus on bread and butter issues facing their local communities.
Labour MP Dawn Butler launched a summer campaign to clean up Britain’s high streets. “At the moment, councils are not allowed to say no to betting shops and adult gaming centres. That’s why we have so many in poorer areas,” she told The Mirror at the time.
“So what I want to do is make sure we change the law – the 2005 Gambling Act – so that councils can have more of a say, so that people can have more of a say, because our high streets deserve to be better.”
Andrew Pakes, Labour MP for Peterborough, is also among those focusing on rejuvenating his city’s ghost high streets, which have seen a boom in vape shops and gambling centres.
“There are too many visible signs that our high streets are in distress and people want to see change,” he told the Mirror earlier this month.
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