SCARBOROUGH & WHITBY LIB DEMS BACK PROPOSALS TO REGENERATE TOWN CENTRES

2.58.40pm GMT Fri 2nd Mar 2007

Liberal Democrats from Scarborough and Whitby will be supporting proposals to give local communities new powers to regenerate town centres, and give local businesses a fairer deal, when they are debated at the party's conference in Harrogate this weekend.

Parliamentary Spokesperson Tania Exley-Moore said:

"Many of our towns and villages are witnessing the slow deaths of their retail centres. Post offices, pubs and high street banks are disappearing, small local shops are being replaced by mini-supermarkets owned by the major chains and once individual high streets have become identikit clones of each other.

"We need to ensure fair competition in our high streets by levelling the playing field between locally owned business and supermarkets. The Liberal Democrats would introduce tough new legislation to control monopolies, with a presumption against high concentration of ownership in local areas as well as nationally: the Office of Fair Trading specifies eight per cent of market share as the point where distortions begin and this should be enforced.

"Our proposals would cut business rates for small businesses, and make it easier for local authorities to judge planning applications for superstores solely on their merits rather than be influenced by the cost of possible appeals, by making firms and companies liable for their own costs in any planning appeal, what ever the result.

"We would put local people in charge of regeneration as they are best placed to know what their community needs. Under both the Conservatives and Labour successive governments have favoured centrally directed regeneration projects, promoting property investment rather than providing the jobs, social networks and a level playing field needed by small and medium businesses if they are to grow and flourish.

"This needs to change. We would develop effective and accountable models for the local control of local facilities and institutions. We would also decentralise the planning system, giving greater control of it over to local communities with local councils having the freedom to develop their own local plans to suit their needs, rather than meet government directives."

"This is why I will be voting for these proposals to become Liberal Democrat party policy when they are debated at our party conference on Sunday."