Recommendation 70

Ministers from the new Government emphasised to us that they believe local communities are central to any future work to improve high streets and town centres. The Lords Minister for Housing and Local Government, Parliamentary Under-Secretary Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, emphasised the importance of engaging with young people, to ensure that future town centres will work for them. 142 We were told that any future programmes would seek to empower local authorities and, through them, local communities to take decisions about what their area needs for the future: 143 “There is a great value in local communities being able to determine whether the priorities that they set when they were consulted about their town centres and high streets have been delivered by local leaders.” 144