Labour's shadow chancellor says tackling anti social behaviour is a "big issue" when it comes to improving high streets in towns such as Mansfield. Giving councils more power over empty shops were also among the ideas discussed by Rachel Reeves during a visit to Mansfield on Tuesday (April 27).
The visit, which took place with just a week to go before voters across Nottinghamshire vote for their local councillors, also saw shadow levelling up, housing and communities secretary Lisa Nandy touring Mansfield shops. Joined by Labour's current mayor for Mansfield, Andy Abrahams, Lisa Nandy and Rachel Reeves visited several local businesses and walked around the Four Seasons Shopping Centre.
Government figures show the East Midlands has lost 580 pubs, 520 banks and 490 shops since 2010. Rachel Reeves acknowledged this was partly down due to changing consuming behaviour, accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic, but said Labour would introduce several measures to try and halt the decline of Britain's high streets.
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Speaking to the Mansfield Chad during the visit, Rachel Reeves said one of the biggest problems was anti social behaviour. The shadow chancellor said: "There is a big problem of anti-social behaviour and we need more police on the streets. One of the things people say is that they don't like to go out after dark.
"That's alright at the moment because the days are getting longer and the nights are lighter, but in the winter that's a massive problem because by three in the afternoon, you've got empty high streets. We do need to be tackling those issues of anti social behaviour like street drinking and shoplifting - those are real problems for high streets."
Andy Abrahams added: "We can have all these initiatives to attract people into the town centre but [there can] still be that perception that it's not safe. We've tried to address that in Mansfield by giving the police workstations around town, but we just haven't got the numbers and people like to see that visible presence."
The Government announced this week that it had exceeded its manifesto commitment to hire 20,000 new police officers, saying numbers were now higher than when cuts began in 2010. But some have argued the numbers have not grown in proportion to the UK population, which has grown by around 7% since 2010.
Labour has pledged it would recruit 13,000 more neighbourhood police and PCSOs to address problems such as anti social behaviour on the high streets. Among the businesses visited by Rachel Reeves and Lisa Nandy was The Little Lotion Company, a family-run bath bomb and cosmetics business based in the Four Seasons.
Despite saying that she had been "inspired" by the strength of independent retail in Mansfield, Rachel Reeves said: "All around the country, high streets are struggling and certainly the shopping centre manager here was saying during the pandemic they lost Debenhams and Arcadia. The truth is there are lots of headwinds that are making things really difficult for high streets and shopping centres."
Other Labour policies around the high street include reforming business rates to create a "level playing field" between physical and online retailers, creating further tailored support to help small businesses manage energy bills and stamping out late payments. But Lisa Nandy said another key area was tackling the number of empty shops.
Labour says it would force landlords to include the name of a property's owner on the Land Registry, making it easier for authorities to identify them. Lisa Nandy said: "We would hand powers to councils to make it much easier for them to take back control of their town centres, to be able to bring those shops back into use. Use it or lose it is essentially the message.
"One of the great challenges here in Mansfield is that even when they've identified the vacant property, they can't identify who actually owns them. These are our town centres and they belong to us in common."
Mansfield is one of the eight authorities in Nottinghamshire for which elections will be held on May 4. Andy Abrahams will be running again for mayor on behalf of Labour, alongside other candidates including Mick Barton for the Mansfield Independents, Andre Camilleri for the Conservatives, Karen Rachel Mary Seymour for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition and independent candidate Julie Margaret Tasker-Love-Birks.
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