16/07/2021
Permanent move to cafĂ© culture in town centres as part of âlevelling upâ
July 16 2021, The Times
Outdoor cafĂ© culture is set to become a permanent fixture of Britainâs streets under plans to give bars, restaurants and coffee shops the right to offer al-fresco service.
The rules were first relaxed last year to make it easier for businesses to serve customers outside when indoor Covid restrictions were in place. Now ministers say that they want the changes to be permanent to reinvigorate town centres as part of the governmentâs âlevelling up agendaâ, set out yesterday by Boris Johnson.
He also pledged to create directly elected mayors for individual English counties as part of a national effort to improve the economic performance of the north and Midlands.
The prime minister said in a speech that he wanted to âtake a more flexible approachâ to devolution in England with more power-sharing deals and mayors to represent local areas. However, he suggested that he did not like the term âmayorâ and said: âIf you can think of a better title than mayor for somebody who represents a county, then please, send me an email. There are other possibilities. We could devolve power for a specific local purpose like a county or city coming together to improve local services like buses.â
The high-street strategy, announced by Johnson during the speech at the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre in Coventry, will also expand space for pedestrians and create low-traffic neighbourhoods. There will also be a ÂŁ10 million fund, paid for by industry, to help councils to clean up gum from the streets and a further ÂŁ2 million to tackle graffiti. Councils in England will also be given the power to take over derelict buildings through compulsory purchase to convert them into homes.
Government sources said that allowing cafĂ©s, bars and restaurants to spill out into the street had proved popular with businesses and the public. They added that previous restrictions had needed a licence from local authorities and were overly restrictive and costly: âYouâve always had an outdoor cafĂ© culture on the Continent but much less so in this country. It seems sensible that the changes we made as a necessity during Covid should be made permanent.â
Johnson said: âThough each change may be small, the overall effect can be transformed in making that environment attractive as a place to live and bring up a family and to invest.â
There will also be proposals to make organising street parties easier. Empty shops will be allowed to become entertainment venues or new businesses without the need for planning permission. The government also published details of how community groups can apply for up to ÂŁ250,000 in matched funding to take over pubs, theatres, shops and sports grounds at risk of closure.
Robert Jenrick, the housing secretary, said: âWith more funding for town centres and powers for communities to take a stake in their local area, we are delivering on our commitments to level up.â
Ministers also announced an extension of the Towns Fund, designed to aid deprived towns. But the move drew criticism after it emerged that Tory constituencies would receive more than five times as much as Labour seats. In total more than ÂŁ1.9 billion has been pledged to Conservative seats against ÂŁ354 million for Labour constituencies, analysis by The Times has found.
Labour accused the government of funnelling money to wealthy areas. Steve Reed, the shadow communities secretary, said: âThe Conservatives deepened inequalities in our country in the first place, now this analysis shows theyâre pulling it further apart.â
Johnson said the UK had one of the most unbalanced economies in western Europe, and that the country was firing on only âone cylinderâ as a result.
âThis country is not only one of the most imbalanced economies in our neighbourhood, in the developed world, it is also one of the most centralised ones,â he said. âThose two defects are obviously connected.
âIf you look at France or other G7 economies the levels of productivity are much more comparable across all their big cities. Imagine if we could level up â not just lengthening Londonâs lead around the world, but closing the gap between London and the rest of the UKâs great cities.â
He said at present the country was âsquanderingâ the potential of its population and could succeed only if local leadership took decisions and pushed investment in local areas. He called for local leaders to come forward with ideas for powers they wanted to reclaim from Whitehall as part of a fundamental review being conducted by the Conservative MP Neil OâBrien.
More detailed policies are expected to be published as part of a white paper in the autumn.
Johnson said that by diverting investment from already âoverheatedâ parts of the country, quality of life could be improved more widely. However, he said the strategy would not damage wealthier regions. âWe donât want to decapitate the tall poppies. We donât think that you can make the poor parts of the country richer by making the rich parts of the country poorer.
âYou canât hope to stimulate growth around the country by actually constraining companies from developing.â
He said the inequalities and imbalances were evident long before Covid but needed to be addressed now.
âWe need to say from the beginning that, before the pandemic began, the UK had and still has a more unbalanced economy than almost all our immediate competitors in Europe,â he said. âAnd when I say unbalanced, I mean that for too many people, geography turns out to be destiny. Take life expectancy, even before Covid hit. It is an outrage that a man in Glasgow or Blackpool has an average of ten years less on this planet than someone growing up in Hart in Hampshire or in Rutland.â
Johnson argued that devolution made sense because the âideological conflictâ between central government and local authorities had ended, since the latter had become more pro-business. âFor many decades, central government in London relentlessly crushed local leadership,â he said. âIrresponsible municipal socialist governments were bankrupting cities and were so genuinely hostile to business in such a way that government was forced to intervene. Now, with some notable exceptions, that argument is over and most of the big metro mayors know that private sector investment is crucial.
âWe have to learn the lessons of the last 50 years. We must get the right local leadership. Ken Livingstone of the 2000s is a very different creature from the Ken Livingstone of the 1980s.â
Dominic Cummings, the prime ministerâs former chief adviser, said the speech was pointless and that levelling up was a âvapid SW1 [the Westminster postcode] slogan.â He tweeted: âItâs a crap slogan & we proved that by testing it. Just like âGlobal Britain.â â
He said that the government had buried its own report on healthier food, which was published yesterday morning, with the speech. Sir Henry Dimbleby, the restaurateur, had been commissioned to conduct a review on the British diet and recommended a levy on salty and sugary food, which Johnson said yesterday he was not in favour of.
Boris Johnsonâs levelling up speech yesterday was a vivid encapsulation of a problem that has bedevilled governments.
Why is it, he asked, that 31 years after German unification, the per capita GDP of the northeast is lower than in what was formerly East Germany? And why should it be that Bath has a population where 78 per cent have the equivalent of A-level qualifications while Bradford has only 42 per cent?
However, while diagnosing and articulating the inequality problem is critical, the solutions are far harder and success will almost certainly take many years.
In his speech Johnson said that part of the key was more devolution to local areas.
That poses political and practical problems. Politically, no central government wants to denude itself of power, especially if those powers are wielded by those of a different party. Practically, devolving spending does not necessarily mean better decisions â some areas could actually go backwards.
Equally, some of the problems Johnson wants to solve will take years to achieve. You canât turn around educational achievement in a parliament and fostering a skills base that makes an area attractive for investors is complex. Likewise, life expectancy is as much to do with lifestyle and income as it is the NHS â and on the same day as his speech, Johnson appeared to dismiss the central recommendation of a commission trying to solve just that problem.
That is not to say the intentions behind Johnsonâs levelling-up agenda are not sincere. The danger is that even a two-term Johnson government will only begin to address the systemic problems. And voters are likely to judge him much sooner.
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Outdoor cafĂ© culture is set to become a permanent fixture of Britainâs streets under plans to give bars, restaurants and coffee shops the right to offer al-fresco service. The rules were first relaxed last year to make it easier for businesses to serve customers outside when indoor Covid restrict...
