Across the UK, our High Streets are dying. Our struggling High Street shops have suffered a body blow. They not only lost valuable trade due to Covid restrictions but also encountered ever higher energy charges, higher borrowing costs and higher staff wages. Sales fell away also due to struggling customers suffering from inflationary pressures of their own, which meant they had less money to spend.

Major supermarkets, out-of-town shopping centres and online shopping combined to leave our High Streets in decay. Stores closed, banks became wine bars, shops have been boarded-up, there is violence and other crime on the streets, parking costs have soared and there is a lack of affordable parking.

All these factors have conspired to turn our once-flourishing town centres into a sorry state. Local councils have intentionally made it hard and costly to park in town centres. It therefore makes sense that people have deserted our High Streets for out-of-town centres where it is much easier and cheaper to park.

The deterioration is due in no small part to years of neglect and even deliberate

action by our local councils. Many councils imposed business rates that businesses could not afford and they hit shoppers with high car parking charges, low traffic neighbourhoods, clean air charging zones and other obstacles that made it economically unrealistic to drive to the shops and park.

The UK Independence Party knows that when overheads are low, and where parking is free, town centres will thrive. The UK Independence Party has a long-standing manifesto policy that would help local shops and traders, abolishing all business rates and bringing free parking back to town centres and local shopping parades.

To help people to easily travel into the High Street, the UK Independence Party would end the war on the motorist. We will scrap all bus and cycle lanes; remove low traffic zones and streets reduced to dead ends by bollards and planters. We would scrap congestion charges, clean air charging zones, punitive car park, and kerb-side parking fees.

In many towns, people stay away because they do not feel safe in the street due to beggars, drunks, fights in the street, gun, and knife crime. The UK Independence Party knows we need more police on the streets to crack down on crime and anti-social behaviour. Therefore, the UK Independence Party will invest in local policing to protect communities.

The UK Independence Party wants to save our High Streets and we will act now to reverse the decline because we are the party that is on the side of small business and working families.

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Business, Trade and Foreign Affairs