COMMITTEE FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Inquiry into Town Centre Regeneration
22 November 2007
Members present for all or part of the proceedings:
Mr Gregory Campbell (Chairperson)
Mr Mickey Brady
Mr Thomas Burns
Mr Jonathan Craig
Ms Anna Lo
Mr Fra McCann
Mrs Claire McGill
Miss Michelle McIlveen
Mr Alban Maginness
Witnesses:
Mr Bryan Gray ) Northern Ireland Independent Retail Trade Association
Mr Des Stephens ) Independent Planning Consultant
Mr Paul Stewart ) Northern Ireland Independent Retail Trade Association
Mr Barry Turley ) ASITIS Consulting
The Chairperson (Mr Campbell):
I welcome the witnesses from the Northern Ireland Independent Retail Trade Association (NIIRTA) to the Committee. Please turn off any mobile phones as they interfere with the recording. The Committee is delighted that you are here.
Mr Bryan Gray ( Northern Ireland Independent Retail Trade Association):
My name is Bryan Gray, and I am the chief executive of the Northern Ireland Independent Retail Trade Association. With me are: Mr Paul Stewart, the president of NIIRTA and an independent retailer in the centre of Magherafelt; Mr Des Stephens, an independent planning consultant who does work for the association; and Mr Barry Turley, who is our parliamentary consultant. The Committee has a summary of our evidence that explains who and what we are.
NIIRTA represents more than 900 independent retailers who operate in every town and village — and many country crossroads — throughout the Province. There has been a huge change in the nature of retail in Northern Ireland over the past 10 years since the arrival of the multiples.
Of course, the multiples’ preferred location is out-of-town centres where greenfield sites can be developed more cheaply than town-centre ones and which give them more scope to develop ever larger shops.
Indeed, we now face the prospect that Ireland’s first ever Tesco Extra store will be located in Banbridge; at 130,000 sq ft, it will be so huge that it is difficult to visualise. Let me put it in perspective — if everyone who lives in Banbridge went to the new store on the same day, there would not be a crush because they would each have about 4 sq ft in which to stand. Increasingly, out-of-town developments are disproportionately large. They do not just affect our members, who are exclusively grocery retailers; they affect every retail outlet on the high street: they sell electrical goods, clothes, insurance, and so on — even insurance brokers are affected. No high-street retailer escapes the damage that is done by out-of-town centres.
Fortunately, Northern Ireland can still close the stable door before the horse has bolted completely. We have yet to suffer the damage that out-of-town centres have caused in England and Wales, where 42% of small towns and large villages no longer have a shop of any kind. There is nowhere to buy milk or newspapers — nowhere for social interaction.
NIIRTA’s submission is based on the report by EDAW Consultants that was delivered to the Department for Social Development (DSD) in March 2000 containing 27 recommendations. The association was disappointed that the report was never publicised and never saw the light of day. It bounced around the Department but was never published; the public never had access to it. The association believes that many of the report’s recommendations were not followed through.
Rather than go through all the recommendations, I will highlight a few. Recommendation 1 stated that there was a strong case for planning policy statement 5 (PPS 5) to be reviewed as a priority. Chairman, you will recall that when you were Minister for Regional Development, the association wrote to you on the matter. In 2003, it was anticipated that a revised PPS 5 would be published reasonably quickly; however, after direct rule was reinstated, hidden agendas got in the way of its publication. Seven years after the review was commissioned, a final retail planning policy statement has still not been published.
The association agrees with EDAW Consultants that there is a strong case for commissioning a retail capacity assessment for Northern Ireland. In many ways, the research that the Department for Regional Department (DRD) commissioned from Roger Tym & Partners in 2000 amounted to a retail capacity assessment. However, the fact that the Department for Social Development was not even consulted on the terms of reference of that research is a prime example of how little joined-up government there was at the time. Just last week, at a meeting with Conor Murphy, the association discovered that the research has been updated, although we can be confident that the Department for Regional Development has not shared that with DSD either. That is a major problem.
Recommendation 4 said that town-centre management should be considered as an element of town-centre reinvigoration. Town-centre management has already peaked. A few years ago, there were about 20 town-centre managers in Northern Ireland, but they are gradually disappearing, as their funding has been removed. Councils are replacing them with economic development officers. An economic development officer is far from being a town-centre manager, and very far from being independent.
The case for town-centre managers is most obvious in Antrim, where the town-centre manager and the town-centre management company completely opposed grocery retailing at Junction One. The council did not share their view, and as a result pulled the funding for the town-centre manager and the management company, and they no longer exist. Antrim is the perfect example of retail dereliction in the Province. There are no shops in its town centre: it has been reduced to taxi depots, Indian takeaways and other food outlets — but no retailing. It is completely derelict, and it does not even have a town-centre manager to try to turn that situation around.
Recommendation 6 from EDAW Consultants states that social exclusion must be recognised as a key factor in town centre reinvigoration. Recommendation 8 states that housing makes a significant contribution to the reinvigoration of town centres. Mr Stephens will elaborate on the housing issue, and I will confine myself to areas in which I have expertise — retail.
Recommendation 10 states that the regional transport plan should include specific policies for town centres. The regional transport plan has been published, but local transport plans and how they can be linked to town-centre policies are important. One main problem is that too many car parks are owned by the Department for Regional Development, and most of them are in town centres and not being utilised. There are also other large tracts of land in public ownership. For instance, Translink, the education and library boards and the health and social services boards own large tracts of underused land in town centres, which should be used to revitalise them.
Recommendation 13 identifies that pedestrianisation has not worked, and there are good examples of that; it has not worked in Antrim, and it has done nothing to enhance Newry’s town centre.
Recommendations 14 and 15 go together and state that there should be joined-up government. However, we have seen little evidence of joined-up government between the three Departments whose remit affects town centres.
Recommendation 22 states that the funding of town-centre projects should be limited to towns that have an agreed town-centre strategy, but that is not the case. The Department spent substantial sums on Antrim’s town centre, but the council is intent on supporting out-of-town shopping at Junction One. Its town centre has suffered more dereliction than any other in Northern Ireland, but the council seems to be intent on making it worse. Spending money on Antrim town centre while the council continues its support for grocery retailing at Junction One is merely pouring money down the drain.
With regard to the scope and effectiveness of programmes and policies, DSD must impress upon DRD the urgency of publishing the final version of PPS 5, as we are in a policy vacuum. Developers are interested only in their own profit — not in the vitality of town centres — and they will continue to make hay while the sun shines and for as long as the policy vacuum exists. Furthermore, the large multiple retailers will continue to promote out-of-town shopping at the expense of town centres. DSD must promote evidence-based research. DRD has not shared with DSD its update on the research carried out by Roger Tym & Partners; in fact, there seems to be little communication between the Departments. Programmes are narrowly based and ad hoc; designed to deal with particular problems.
An example of that is the Semple Report on affordable housing, which considered the subject in a narrow, tunnel-vision way; it did not include a longer-term, wider-based strategy for affordable housing.
The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health and the Public Health Alliance for the island of Ireland recently published research. However, I could not forward that research to the Committee Clerk before this meeting because it was published only in the past two weeks. However, I have brought a copy of it entitled ‘Food Poverty — Fact or Fiction?’ It makes several important points about how a lack of policy and the move of shopping to out-of-town centres have directly affected food poverty in Northern Ireland and increased social deprivation.
Regeneration funding in the promotion of affordable housing through associations, rather than co-ordinated action between the three Departments involved, has failed. NIIRTA gives examples of failed pedestrianisation and of district councils that continue to promote out-of-town shopping at the expense of their town centres. We are at a loss to understand district councils’ agenda in that regard.
On the nature and effectiveness of engagement with local communities, DSD is the Cinderella Department; it picks up the wreckage that is left by its two ugly sisters, DRD and the Department of the Environment (DOE) and papers over the cracks that they cause. That is caused by a lack of joined-up government. DSD must engage fully with DOE in preparing area plans, and it must be fully consulted by DOE, the Planning Service and DRD. DSD is consulted only on retail developments in town centres, which usually enhance them. It is much more important that the Planning Service consult DSD on developments outside town centres that will damage them. At present, DSD is not a statutory consultee, even though its input into out-of-town developments is vital.
There is a clear need for a relationship between the town-centre strategy and the development plan, and that should be set down in legislation. Rather than papering over the cracks piecemeal, DSD must have a five-year action plan to prioritise needs and to integrate them with development plans and to assemble sites. That is affected by public-sector landholdings, and, once again, Antrim is a good example. The education and library board owns land in the town centre that it will not free. Other land in Antrim is owned by Translink; however, it has no incentive to sell it because it is not allowed to retain the capital from the sale; it must pass it over to the Department. That seems preposterous. Any asset that comes Translink’s way as a result of selling land should be reinvested in the transport infrastructure rather than be handed over. The large tracts of land in Antrim town centre that are in the hands of various public bodies should be assembled to provide a site in the centre of Antrim that will revitalise the town. It is important that connections between car parks, transport interchanges and pedestrian links be enhanced.
Experience elsewhere shows that the present fragmented system hinders success and damages policy. Comprehensive development schemes are much more successful in Great Britain, as a planning authority has vesting powers to assemble sites. If the Department is serious about town-centre reinvigoration, it must take positive action to assemble sites. Town-centre sites will not invent themselves; developers will not come together to put their parcels of land together. It is the Department’s proper place to assemble and promote such sites, possibly in public-private partnerships together with developers. Perhaps a new approach is needed, but sites must be assembled and developed in town centres.
There are lessons to be learned from the Republic of Ireland, and we know that departmental officials share that view. In the South, town-centre regeneration and development is largely the remit of an individual who looks at the overall picture — all the developments and circumstances that affect town centres — and takes a much broader view.
We commend to the Committee the report of the all-party parliamentary small shops group, whose recommendations recognise that local shops are the glue that holds communities together. When retailing in town centres loses its vitality, it affects many other aspects of life in a town. It has a huge impact on the night-time economy. If the town centre is empty throughout the day and lacks vitality, it tends to become a dark and threatening place at night.
The all-party parliamentary small shops group said that progressive policies and measures — locally, regionally, and nationally — are required to redress the balance and to sustain a healthy, competitive market in town centres and to protect local people and economies. In effect, the out-of-town shopping centres that are promoted by large, multiple retailers become a huge Hoover that vacuums money out of Northern Ireland’s economy, takes it across the Irish Sea, and damages local producers, farmers, retailers and communities.
The group also recommended a rates relief system for independent traders who trade at the threshold of viability. The Department of Finance and Personnel has commissioned research into the viability of rates relief, which is vital to the survival of small retailers. The group also recommended that local authorities adopt a retail strategy in the unitary development plan, which is a feature of planning in England. However, that recommendation could equally be applied to Northern Ireland.
The group also recommends that there should be regeneration units in all local authorities in the UK. That could easily be applied to Northern Ireland, as such units do not exist here. There should be focused regeneration units in all regional development associations in the UK.
In Northern Ireland, the Department for Social Development plays the role of a regional development authority in many ways, but we question the Department’s effectiveness in promoting regeneration. Powers should be delegated, and people locally should be consulted on many more issues that affect town centres. The recommendations of the Hampton Review, which is in essence about joined-up government, should be introduced. It is about communication, co-operation and joint policies between Departments.
The Chairperson:
Why did the EDAW Consultants’ report of March 2000 not go anywhere?
Mr Gray:
It is difficult to say. Mr Stephens may know.
Mr Des Stephens ( Northern Ireland Independent Retail Trade Association):
First, the report was never put into the public domain, which is the first thing that would have been done had there been a serious attempt to implement its recommendations. Secondly, its recommendations should have been prioritised. Thirdly, there should have been a plan of action to implement the recommendations, had they been adopted by the Department.
As far as I am aware, none of those things took place. We are not on the inside of the Department and cannot know the details; however, since the report was not published and no action has been taken publicly, we must assume that very little has been done to implement it.
The Chairperson:
Apart from creating a great deal of trouble, what other reasons could there have been for the Department not highlighting, publicising, promoting or proceeding with it?
Mr Stephens:
Each Department has its priorities; for example, affordable housing may be a priority of DSD. I was a senior civil servant in DRD and DOE. When the Department for Regional Development was trying to publish planning policy statement 12 (PPS 12) on housing development, we tried to get all three Departments to work together so that they could identify what proportion of a housing development would be allocated for affordable housing in any new planning application.
We visited authorities in Bristol and Wandsworth to see what happens when a single authority looks after housing and planning. On day one of a planning application, 10% or 20% of the houses were allocated for affordable housing. The developer built the affordable houses in the same way as the other houses, and when they were completed they were taken over by the housing authority. People in the borough in need of affordable housing were allocated a house in the private housing development. Externally, all the houses looked the same and all were provided by the developer. However, the housing authority gave an undertaking, in conjunction with the planners at the outset of the planning application, that it would take over those houses. There is a unified system in place from day one, and a reasonable proportion of a development is given over to affordable housing.
In 2002-03, the University of Ulster said that Northern Ireland was coming under pressure on the price of housing and that house prices were reaching those on the mainland. However, the Housing Executive decided that Northern Ireland did not need to concern itself with overheating house prices, as any problems were some distance and some time away. Look at what has happened: house prices in Northern Ireland have risen more than anywhere else in the United Kingdom — some 60% last year. Northern Ireland now has a real problem with affordable housing — particularly first-time buyers.
Working closely together, the three Departments could, along with house builders, have full implementation with a reasonable proportion of affordable housing at no cost to the Department for Social Development.
The Chairperson:
There is a lack of co-ordination and joined-up working between Departments.
Mr A Maginness:
It has been suggested that PPS 5 is the responsibility of DRD. In light of the court case on PPS 14, should it not be transferred to the Department of the Environment? I may be totally wrong, but could that not be considered? The Minister for Social Development referred to PPS 12 and said that it should also go to the Department of the Environment.
I thank the Northern Ireland Independent Retail Trade Association for its interesting submission; it makes a very persuasive case for small retailers, for whom I have tremendous sympathy. I am sure that most members want to retain town and city centres as the focus for retail and commercial activity.
However, people are voting with their feet — or their cars — they are moving from town centres to outlying retail centres and are, in effect, creating new town centres. That is a serious problem, and I am not sure that there is a simple solution that will redress the balance in favour of small retailers. If the big English and American companies thought that people were focused on town centres, that is where they would put their businesses. We are only at the beginning of our inquiry, but already redressing the balance has come across as a fundamental problem. Have things gone so far that people now view out-of-town shopping centres as the natural focus for serious retail?
Mr Gray:
First, I will give some information on PPS 5 and PPS 14. Following the PPS 14 judgement, it was our view that PPS 5 was likely to move to the Department of the Environment. On Thursday, we met the Minister for Regional Development, Conor Murphy. DRD feels that PPS 5 may move to the DOE, but, as of Thursday, that decision had not been made.
As for the popularity of out-of-town shopping centres, we must ask which came first, the chicken or the egg? The answer is that, of course, the out-of-town shopping centre came first.
The motives of large multiple retailers and American corporations for building out of town are not to do with meeting the needs of consumers, although they will always tell us that: their motives are to meet the needs of large multiple retailers. There are several aspects to that.
Building in a town centre is on brownfield sites that are expensive to clear. A site must be assembled and several landowners must be dealt with, which can be awkward. It is much easier to nip a couple of miles out the road — as one large multiple retailer is about to do near Magherafelt — and pick a large green field: no site assembly and no clearance are required, and it is cheaper to build a shop there.
There is another aspect to the behaviour of large multiple retailers that is vital to the preservation of town centres: multiple retailers can assemble greater floor space, but they do not use it to offer consumers more choice; they use it to sell more categories. Including more categories under one roof increases the damage to town centres exponentially. For example, the biggest Tesco in Ireland is in Clarehall, near Malahide. If you travel from Dublin airport to Malahide, you will see it on the right-hand side. Locally, it is known as the Clarehall opera house because it is so huge. It sells absolutely everything: lawnmowers, fertiliser and everything else. Every retail outlet for many miles has been damaged by that shop. Indeed, if one wishes to visit the doctor in Clarehall, one goes to Tesco because that is where the doctor’s surgery is.
We have a choice: do we want town centres full of shoppers and vitality, or do we want a huge, one-stop grey box on the outskirts of town surrounded by a huge car park?
We are all consumers. The difficulty with consumers is that, collectively, they are not far-sighted. When new shops open on our doorstep we all think that they are wonderful — when a large new shop opened close to where I live, for several weeks my wife thought that it was wonderful. However, now she is gradually drifting back to the local shops because she sees the benefits that they bring. Collectively, consumers are not far-sighted, and it is Government’s job to inform, educate — and govern — in matters that affect consumers. In five years’ time, when Northern Ireland has suffered the same retail damage as England — 42% of small towns and villages without a shop of any kind — consumers will ask why there is nowhere left in their towns to buy milk and papers, and who allowed that to happen. Consumers will not blame themselves or the large multiples; they will blame Government.
The Chairperson:
They usually do.
Mr Craig:
I have listened to Mr Gray, and he is very passionate. The unfortunate reality is, as Alban said, that shoppers have voted with their feet. I am one of the dinosaurs who still shop in the town centre, although my wife does not and I know why. What are the top three recommendations that could reverse that?
Mr Gray:
The most important factor is site assembly; it is the role of the Department to assemble town-centre sites. If there is to be development in town centres, sites must be assembled there. In answer to Mr Maginness’s question, town-centre sites tend to be smaller; they do not give the large multiples the scope to develop as much floor space and they force them to compete alongside other retailers.
Out-of-town centres take people out of town, which completely excludes town-centre retailers; if people continue to walk past their front door, they can compete, which is all that our members want. They do not want special protectionist policies to protect retailing in Northern Ireland; they just want the opportunity to compete by having people walk past their front door. If shoppers are three miles out of town in a car park, we cannot compete, and that is where the damage is done.
People often say that Tesco at Knocknagoney has done Holywood no harm. However, the damage does not appear overnight; it will appear in three to five years’ time. Small local retailers are generally family businesses that often employ family members; they can cut costs, pay a couple of employees off and are perhaps a wee bit more resilient — perhaps they own their own property. However, they will not close until between three and five years after out-of-town shopping centres are built. Once those shops close they will never reopen; they will be replaced by financial services and charity shops, which pay only 50% rates.
For example, driving through Ballyhackamore, which is a retail centre not far from here, one would think that it is a vibrant local centre with a range of nice new shops. However, walking around Ballyhackamore you see a different story; there are 13 estate agents, five charity shops, a newsagent and a very small greengrocer. That is it. There is very little retail vitality in such local centres at present. Des will nominate the other two most important issues.
Mr Stephens:
Improved links in town centres are important. Full pedestrianisation has not worked. As Bryan pointed out, Antrim is a classic example of a town that has deteriorated and developers have moved out of it. I carried out studies on several towns and found that Ballymena is an example of the reverse: two good shopping centres were located in the town centre — the Tower Centre and the Fairhill shopping centre. I was part of the group that advocated keeping the Fairhill site developed for shopping.
There are good car parks around the perimeter of the town. Communications are shaped almost like a dumbbell: pedestrians move between the two shopping centres because they are within walking distance. The net result is a vibrancy that other towns do not possess. The danger in Antrim is that a new town centre is being recreated outside the town. The new Larne, Carrick and Antrim area plans will have to address that. Will Antrim town centre be regenerated?
I encourage the Committee to think about this: housing brings life to town centres after business hours. We suffered the troubles for 30 years when nobody wanted to live over the shop in town centres, particularly when there was a risk to their lives. Now that we have peace and general prosperity, there is a great opportunity to encourage housing back into town centres. In many of the shops and businesses in towns, the upstairs space is used for storage or for nothing at all. We have a wonderful opportunity to encourage movement back into town centres so that people can live and work much more closely together. It is also much more sustainable and makes use of vacant properties.
The Chairperson:
I remind members that we are pushed for time.
Mr Craig:
I have one brief supplementary question. I was surprised that you did not mention the reason that my wife gives me for not shopping in the town centre — parking. Car-parking charges in some town centres are excessive. Is that not a major reason why people are driven towards out-of-town shopping centres, where parking is free?
Mr Gray:
It is an issue on which we have made representations to the Department in respect of several town centres. Fortunately, the Department has been receptive. The parking regime in Ballynahinch is about to change, if it has not already done so, to solve problems with town-centre car parking. It was 20p for an hour, but is now 20p for three hours. We have also spoken to the Department about problems in Armagh city centre, and the parking regime there is being changed. Parking policy, particularly town-centre parking, must be addressed. Unfortunately, we are all in love with our cars; if people could drive their car into a shop, they would.
The Chairperson:
Some do.
Mr Gray:
One of our members has been very innovative and has established a drive-through Spar on the Cliftonville Road.
Mr Brady:
You said that 42% of English villages no longer have a shop of any kind. To paraphrase Napoleon, it is no longer a nation of shopkeepers; it is a nation of out-of-town supermarkets. Mr Stephens talked about town-centre developments. Newry has the Buttercrane shopping centre and the Quays, which are within walking distance of each other. People have no choice but to walk, because they cannot get parked. It is as simple as that, and it is a nightmare.
Mr Gray made a very relevant point: over the past two Christmases, Sainsbury’s in Newry had the highest takings of any Sainsbury’s store here or in Britain. The company flew staff in from Scotland and England — no local employment was created. Sainsbury’s does create employment, despite flying people in, but all that money left the area; it did not go back into the Newry and Mourne economic infrastructure. Huge numbers of locals and people from the South spend money, particularly in the Quays, but none of that money stays here, because very few of the outlets are locally-owned.
Mr Gray:
Sainsbury’s in Newry is a good example, as it houses Britain’s biggest off-licence. Every February, Sainsbury’s issues a press release telling us that its Newry store has sold more alcohol than any outlet in Britain. Indeed, we heard anecdotally that in a four-day period last Christmas, it sold £1 million-worth of alcohol.
That is largely driven by the difference in duty between Northern Ireland and the South.
I may not have mentioned it earlier, but in this new era of cross-border co-operation and communication, we have to consider planning policy on the other side of the border. There is a cap on floor-space in the Republic: retailers may not build shops bigger than 30,000 sq ft. Sainsbury’s could not build a shop in Dundalk as big as its supermarket in Newry, so they conveniently built it just across the border. In another prime example — and this is from your town, Mr Chairman — there is a proposal for a 90,000 sq ft Tesco to be built on the Buncrana Road in Derry. It would not be allowed to be built in Letterkenny. However, Southern planning policy can easily be subverted by building a store a couple of hundred yards across the border.
Another key factor in the building of out-of-town shopping centres is the employment myth. We regularly see headlines in newspapers announcing that such-and-such a shop is bringing 400 new jobs for Coleraine or 300 for Omagh. The National Retail Planning Forum carried out definitive research into the impact of the opening of 93 superstores in England and Wales. It came to the conclusion that every superstore that opens results in a net loss of 276 jobs within a 15-kilometre radius. Those jobs are lost in local retailing outlets. Moreover, out-of-town shopping centres are largely staffed by part-time workers.
The Chairperson:
Members should bear in mind that the Committee must hear from another delegation, and it is now after 1.00 pm.
Mrs McGill:
I support NIIRTA’s case. I am from around Omagh and Strabane and I was glad to hear you mention Omagh because there has been much talk of Antrim and Ballymena. Did you invite comments from anyone in Strabane or Omagh? Did you do any research on those towns? If you had, it might have been valuable.
However, I understand the principle of what you have said. Mr Craig mentioned the advantages of parking and shopping on one level as the attractions of out-of-town shopping centres.
Mr Gray:
We have many members in Omagh and Strabane; one of our board members is from Omagh. As the member knows, a new town-centre store was developed recently in Strabane. Lest anyone have the impression that we are opposed to multiples, let me point out that we did not oppose the development of the shop in Strabane, for it was in the town centre. The same retailer is developing a store in the centre of Ballyclare, which we support. Ballyclare badly needs an anchor store in the town centre. We are not anti-multiple; however, we are opposed to out-of-town shopping centres. If rumours that I have heard from Omagh are correct, the town will come under threat from the development of a large multiple. That will be announced soon.
Mrs McGill:
Does DSD fund living over the shop (LOTS)?
Mr Stephens:
Across the water in the mainland there is funding available to create such units.
Mrs McGill:
And the Department for Social Development here funds that.
The Chairperson:
We will consider that in our inquiry.
Miss McIlveen:
I thank the witnesses for their presentation; I have huge sympathy with them. I must declare an interest: my family has a business that has suffered from the advent of huge retail units.
Your presentation was negative and gloomy. The chambers of trade in my area do not often work together, even in one town. In the past, there have been difficulties between chambers of trade and councils over town-centre retail schemes.
I was interested to hear Mr Gray say that sometimes town-centre managers work well and sometimes they do not. Are there examples in Northern Ireland of town-centre managers doing a good job?
Mr Gray:
Bangor is a perfect of example of a town-centre manager being proactive in revitalising the town centre against a trend towards out-of-town shopping. He has managed to retain the town centre’s vitality and keep some heart in the town.
There have been problems with some town-centre managers; some of them receive funding from the large out-of -town shopping centres, and there is a codicil in their contract forbidding them to be critical of an out-of-town centre in any way.
Antrim’s town-centre manager was doing an excellent job until the council decided to remove his funding because it did not agree with him and the town’s traders. Town-centre managers do good jobs, where they are allowed to by those who control the purse strings.
The Chairperson:
You have probably gleaned that there is considerable interest in your work, and the fact that we have agreed to conduct an inquiry should show you where our sympathies lie in regenerating town centres.
We will endeavour to find out what happened to the missing report and why it never saw the light of day. We will let you know the outcome from the Department. Thank you very much.