BETTER TOWN CENTRES, WITHOUT THE PORTAS REPORT

Kent Green Party found the Portas Report on town centres to be very disappointing. Steve Dawe comments:

“The widely covered Portas Report on our high streets is very disappointing. There are many omissions. Examples include controlling high street commercial rents and rents for private landlord-owned accommodation which are both rising in the current recession. Kent Green Party has long advocated building above surface car parks to provide more apartments in urban centres. And replacing some surface car parks by multi-storey car parks would free up some car parks for new homes and new shops where needed. Long-term empty shopfronts must be converted to housing too. Pedestrianisation should be extended in town centres wherever possible to increase footfall, decrease air and noise pollution and extend areas in which weekly markets can operate.

“The Report makes no recommendation about the large areas of unused office space which should be assessed for conversion to homes or other uses. There is no attempt to stop out of town shopping developments which harm our high streets. Kent Green Party wants vacant units in out of town shopping developments re-zoned for purposes other than retail to help push retail activity back into town centres.

“But the Report’s main failings are, first, that it does not recognise that local government has been severely cut back and cannot support good town centre planning without more staff and resources. Secondly, the Report assumes the Government’s strongly contested revisions to Planning law will get through Parliament and make bad planning decisions easier despite strong public objections(2). Local government needs the power to say ‘No’ to unwanted developments.”

FURTHER INFORMATION: Steve Dawe, Press Officer, Kent Green Party on 01732 355185 or 07747 036192. Contact address as above. Steve Dawe lectures in Public Policy and International Political Economy, part-time and does town centre surveys of Tonbridge each year(3). Published by Kent Green Party and promoted by H.Dawe, both at 27, Audley Avenue, Tonbridge, Kent TN9 1XF. Kent Green News, free monthly ezine, is available for subscription at www.kentgreenparty.org

Notes:

1. 1. Key recommendations of the Portas report can be seen at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/13/mary-portas-report-recommendations/print The full report is available at: http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/business-sectors/docs/p/11-1434-portas-review-future-of-high-streets.pdf

2. 2. See Kent Green Party’s submission on the Government’s disastrous planning proposals at: www.kentgreenparty.org under Publications.

3. See: http://westkent.greenparty.org.uk/localsites/westkent/tonbridge-and-malling6.html