In a move that will give many business investors serious pause for thought, the government has this week unveiled its new policy to regenerate the UK’s high streets. The “Pride in Place” programme has been unveiled by the Prime Minister giving local communities unprecedented new powers to revitalise their high streets and “restore pride in their towns.” What it means for the Aim to Permit principle is uncertain – on current discourse though, the government’s backbench MPs are far more interested in the aim to refuse.

From the ‘Coalition of the willing’ to ‘Pride in Place’, this is a government that can certainly kill a slogan. And judging by its latest endeavour to revive the UK high street, it may well have handed over the weapon to bury local economies into the ground as well.

In a policy statement this week, Sir Keir Starmer announced three cornerstones of the government’s new high street revival project – ‘Pride in Place:

· Communities will be handed unprecedented new powers to seize boarded shops, save derelict pubs and block gambling and vape shops on their high street;

· The “Pride in Place” Programme will have  historic funding to invest in over 330 of the most overlooked communities;

· The measures form the largest transfer of power from Whitehall to communities in history through the Plan for Change.

Breaking the new policy down, the government statement confirmed that “people will be given the power to revitalise their neglected high streets, create new spaces for young people and take back control of derelict pubs, to breathe new life into neglected communities up and down the country.”

However, with a policy of seizure, restrictive practices and prohibition – it could be considered more a seismic shift towards an authoritarian state system. 

But no, this, the government notes, is handing power over to the local communities – or as many will fear, the nimby community.

But hold your horses the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government says. Steve Reed is very excited by the initiative.

“When people step out of their front doors, they know their communities are struggling,”  he  declared.  “They see shuttered pubs, fading high streets and their local areas in decline.” 

And Reed has hope in his heart.  “Yes, communities have been stretched – but they haven’t given up. They’re working hard to make things better, and we’re backing them.  

“The Government is putting power into their hands so local people decide how best to restore pride in their neighbourhoods, not us in Westminster.”

Well, lucky us. 

What Reed is missing is the irony: most of the derelict properties on high streets are due to the lack of support from local people themselves. They  are not using the shops that were actually there. They’ve all moved their arses from the high street to the sofa – shopping online or getting in the car and heading out of town to the shopping centres. 

With specific reference to gambling premises, the government has clearly failed to recognise that the ailing high street is not the fault of those businesses that are currently on those high streets. 

It’s more the national and local government that are driving businesses out, having failed consistently to address the threats to the high street over the last few decades.

And the banks, high street chains and local family businesses are not leaving the high streets in their droves because of a lack of local community engagement – it’s because of the robber baron councils charging excessively high business rates, the lack of investment from local government in infrastructure, poor parking and public transport, and of course a sinking economy.

More concerning, given the tone of the voice of local people currently offering their views – it seems to be all about what they don’t want. 

We have a new government policy that puts protests over prospects.

And as wonderful as it sounds, there appears to be no sound economic plan behind the Pride in Place policy – particularly for town centres.

The Community Right to Buy offers no boost to the local economy nor local government funding. “Handing local people the power to buy beloved assets, helping them … create new parks and regenerate treasured spaces in the heart of their communities” will not boost the local economy.

Neither would compulsory purchase powers “for larger sites – like disused department stores or abandoned office blocks” which the  government plan states “could even see new health centres opening up”. Health centres are a vital community asset, but they don’t regenerate the high street.  

And the “Power to block unwanted shops: empowering councils in England to say no to new betting shops” will actually take the only industry investing on the high street out of the system.

Give the government their due, it is an idyllic model, but economically, it’s destructive. And almost certainly unworkable – the caveats in the notes to the Prime Minister’s statement are particularly telling…and, in fairness, more reasonable to the industry ear.

“We are looking at new powers that would give communities more control over where betting shops can open, and how many there can be in one area. This is about giving people a say over their high street, particularly where there are high numbers of these types of shop already, not blocking these shops altogether.”

Despite such a huge Commons majority, this is a government on shaky ground. 

Starmer is juggling between his own backbenchers, the Farage mirage and an economy on the verge of depression. 

And this week’s announcement will ensure that at least one or two of those balls will be dropped.

Blocks to businesses on the high street will not go down well with investors:the markets do not like restrictions and prefer the protection of legislation against local authority over reach. A cut to business rates and the reduction of NICs would have proved far more effective for high street revival. 

He also runs the risk of alienating the more radical wing of the Labour Party who want more powers than those served up in this week’s statement. 

And this policy of restriction will be music to the ears of the free-market advocates in the Tory and Reform Party.

The Pride in Place is a radical change in government policy for the industry; but it could well prove to be a step towards a radical change in government.

What the high street needs is legislation that encourages investment. It already has the licensing powers to shape the nature of businesses in the local community.

The ‘Pride in Place’ programme is not a solution, it’s a sop.

And an ill-thought out one at that.