High streets with boarded up shop fronts and lacking essentials
such as butchers, grocers and bakeries will be given a
multi-million-pound boost.
The £150 million cash injection will be targeted in areas hit
hardest in recent years, and most in need of being brought back
together.
Part of the government's path to renewal, it will help turn the
tide on this decline and restore a sense of pride people feel in
their high streets and local area – which serves as a vital
meeting point for communities.
Communities will bring people back into their local high streets
by supporting local, independent businesses, improve neglected
shopfronts and open up empty units. This will be the first step
in the government's upcoming High Streets
Strategy, announced earlier this week.
It will build action already taken to restore pride in our
communities, empowering councils in England to say no to new
betting shops and vapes stores, supporting more than a thousand
local pubs that offer extra services for communities and
rejuvenating over 330 of the most deprived communities through
our Pride in Place programme.
This is renewal in action, led by the people who know their
neighbourhoods best, and backed by the government which is
choosing unity over division.
Communities Secretary said:
Our high streets are the beating heart of Britain — where
communities come together and local businesses can grow.
Town centres have suffered from high streets falling into
decline, and that is why we're taking action to turn the tide
with this crucial investment and more to come.
We have listened to what people are telling us and that's why
we're giving them the power and control to breathe new life back
into our high streets and restore the sense of pride communities
feel, building on our transformational Pride in Place programme.
More details on the High Streets Strategy, including how funding
will be allocated to specific places, will be announced
in the coming months.
Other steps taken by the government to regenerate high
streets include:
- Introducing a new community right to buy through
the English Devolution and Community Empowerment
Bill, giving local people greater power to save valued
community assets like sports clubs and pubs.
- Ending ‘pub deserts' by banning the loss of the last
community facility in an area.
- Action to tackle the proliferation of betting shops on high
streets.
