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| George Street looking South (Google) |
Green campaign to sustain independent traders comes to George St. in Hove.
31 March 2011. Greens will bring their campaign to sustain independent traders to George Street, Brighton and Hove, on Saturday 2nd April. A stall will be set up where members of the public can discuss this and other issues with Green candidates in forthcoming local elections. Caroline Lucas is expected to attend the stall around noon.
Greens want to protect the independent traders who help give Brighton and Hove its unique character. Recent times have seen these shops closing to be replaced by chain stores, a trend nowhere more evident than in Hove’s George Street, a pedestrianised area that provides a community focus for Central Hove, Goldsmid, and Wish Park.
Ruth Buckley, Green candidate for Goldsmid, said: “Many high streets now are indistinguishable from one another and have lost their local character, the very essence for which they were once known. Seven Dials has retained its character due to the prevalence of mainly independent traders. Unfortunately, George Street seems to be losing this battle as week by week a shop closes to be taken over by either a charity shop or a chain store.“
Green Councillor for Goldsmid, Alex Phillips, said: “Small businesses in Hove are under pressure. I talked with shop owners along Church Road who say rates for small businesses are too high.
“Greens have had success stemming the march of the superstores in the East of our city, most recently convincing Tesco to drop plans for a mega store at Preston circus and to withdraw from the Lewes Road community garden site, a campaign I was involved with, alongside other Green councillors and Caroline Lucas.
Chris Hawtree, Green Candidate for Hove Central, planned the stall on George Street as a talking shop for community issues. He said: "Local independent shops, such as Fine Records, are very much a place where people meet and talk. Such shops create the essence of a place."
Green MP for Brighton Pavilion Caroline Lucas has been campaigning to get government to act on the next step of the Sustainable Communities Act – consultation with local communities. It will help local people protect their services and have a say in improving their communities. On 29 March, she organised a debate in Parliament, to discuss the Government’s stalling. It was confirmed that the consultation needed to allow local people to make future proposals under the Act will start immediately.
Caroline Lucas said: “Thankfully, in Brighton Pavilion there is still a thriving local economy, with traders and businesses fighting off incursions onto the high street by the big chain stores and supermarkets.
“But there are many battles ahead, and we need more powers to restrict the number of large chain stores that pose a threat to the unique character of Brighton. I hope that the new phase of this Act will bring about regulations to help local people stop aggressive supermarket expansion – given that we already have about 56 stores.”
Ruth Buckley added: “There is a place in our community for good stores that bring a choice of commodities to our high streets at attractive prices. But there has to be a balance, or we’ll end up with soul-less high streets dominated by similar stores with no local roots, and no commitment to the well being of local communities.”
“With stores that are part of a national group, the money fed into the shop is not redistributed within the local community, but is fed to shareholders and its board, mostly in another city. Local shops help support local jobs and local businesses. A vote for the Green Party in May is a vote to protect your local community.”
A problem for Brighton and Hove is that in 2006 the then-Labour-led council adopted a consultant’s ‘retail study’ that argued the city needed new supermarkets and shops with a total size equivalent to nine Churchill square shopping centres. The document is still used by supermarkets to justify and support their ever-expanding presence in the city.
Caroline Lucas added: “In the past decade, Britain has lost a quarter of all its post offices, a quarter of all its independent newsagents and a fifth of all its bank branches – with unsustainable consequences for local communities.
“Local people want to be engaged and to get involved, but they often feel that they can’t change anything. The Prime Minister talks about the Big Society, but without adequate resources it is unreasonable to expect that people will have the capacity and skills to either plug the gap left by cuts to public services or provide the input required for genuine community development.
“This is what the Sustainable Communities Act is about – long term, community controlled sustainable engagement allowing local people to decide the solutions to problems in their communities.”
The Green Party 2010 Manifesto promised to amend planning laws to appropriate small businesses and ensure that all large retail developments included spaces for small local businesses, introduce a network of local community banks, and reduce corporation tax for small firms to 20%.
Notes to editors
1) Caroline Lucas’ speech to the Adjournment Debate: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm110328/debtext/110328-0004.htm#11032843000002
2) The Sustainable Communities Act became law in 2007 as a result of a long and widespread grass-roots mobilisation campaign organised by Local Works, a coalition of more than 120 national organisations. The campaign inspired tens of thousands of citizens to urge their MPs to back the Sustainable Communities Bill.
3) The Green Party was the first political party to back the Bill formally, and the campaign continued to call for cross-party support. That was eventually achieved and the Act became law in 2007 with the support of all parties across the House. In October 2008, the Government launched the first invitation for proposals under the 2007 Act. Local Works held many more public meetings across the country, where communities lobbied their councillors to resolve to use the Act. A hundred local authorities responded.
4) The people of Brighton and Hove successfully urged the council to opt into the Act, and then many got involved in coming up with the proposals that would help the area become a more sustainable place. Of those proposals, eight were shortlisted by the LGA. Examples include allowing food grown in allotments to be sold locally, introducing feed-in tariffs for local renewable energy and empowering councils to have more flexible business rates to encourage local trade and jobs.
5) In early 2010, Local Works successfully campaigned for the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 (Amendment) Act 2010. The 2010 Act ensured that the process would be ongoing, and allowed parish and town councils to submit proposals to central Government directly.
Contact:
Contact Brighton and Hove Green Party Press Office for interviews with Candidates and Counsellors.
bhgp.news@googlemail.com
Office of Caroline Lucas
Melissa Freeman, Senior Parliamentary Press Officer
Tel: 020 7219 0870 (no answer phone)
Mob: 07590 050565
Email: melissa.freeman@parliament.uk
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