‘The general election is unlikely to make much difference to blighted town centres like Middlesbrough’

“I don’t go into the town anymore – all the big shops have gone.”

It’s a commonly expressed sentiment in Middlesbrough and the villages around the Teesside town, and it’s easy to see why.

Stand at the junction of Corporation Road, Linthorpe Road and Newport Road in the heart of town and the scene is bleak – despite some sunshine, which has been rare this year.

It’s a reminder of what has gone, rather than a vibrant retail location.

House of Fraser stands shuttered across the street from the empty windows of Debenhams, testament to the difficulty of finding a purpose for once bustling department stores.

The Frasers store is being sold by the council – which bought the building for £1m in 2020 in the hopes of doing something regenerative with the property itself – to the Middlesbrough Development Corporation.

Close by, the former Marks & Spencer shop is also empty. The retailer, frequently seen as a bellwether of high street health, upped sticks to move to Teesside Park after more than a century in the town centre. Opposite, the shutters are down on idle units.

While the gap-toothed main streets have seen much better days, it would be incorrect to characterise Middlesbrough as a complete ghost town.

On a sunny Wednesday afternoon, the town centre was hardly thronging but there was a steady flow of people concentrated around the shops that are left.

Those trading in the town range from Smiggle to The Entertainer and from Sainsbury’s to WHSmith.

Primark has also recently affirmed its commitment to the town centre, even though it recently opened another branch in Teesside Park.

Opposite the defunct House of Fraser branch, Frasers Group stablemates Sports Direct and – perhaps incongruously in a rundown and relatively poor town – luxury fashion fascia Flannels are both trading.

But there’s no denying the centre is in a sorry state for a town once dubbed “an infant Hercules” by then chancellor of the exchequer William Gladstone, such was the scale of its industrial prowess.

Middlesbrough’s faded retail fortunes reflect the town’s other problems. Empty shops to an extent reflect high levels of economic inactivity and violent crime stats that are among the worst in the country.

Lack of disposable income among many people and problems such as antisocial behaviour are hardly conducive to drawing in big retail names. 

So as a general election nears, what difference might the parties’ manifesto commitments make in Middlesbrough, where the retail vacancy rate is at a reported 23.7%?

Action on business rates and crime, including against retail staff, are among the pledges. However, buinesses coould be forgiven for thinking they’ve heard all that before.

If followed through, rates reform might encourage the growth of small businesses such as independent retailers, as well as make it more cost-effective for big retailers to operate in under-pressure locations where their continued presence would also bring employment opportunities.

However, the manifesto statements are bare-bones stuff. When will change come? What changes, specifically, will there be? Will established retailers that sell online as well as in bricks-and-mortar stores end up taking a hit from a new approach on warehouse rates?

Retailers will wait to see the detail – and that means so, too, must Middlesbrough and places like it.

“The future of the high street will depend on the outcome of big issues at the heart of this general election: national economic success, including equipping people with the right skills to achieve that, and a lower cost of living”

On crime, perhaps action will be more swift. Before the election, there were plans to make assaulting retail staff a specific offence.

That did not happen because the election was called and the relevant bill was lost, but both Labour and the Tories say they will address the issue.

Again, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. Given the growth of attacks on retail staff, existing pressures on the police and the time taken to implement change, a centre such as Middlesbrough is unlikely to see overnight improvement.

There have been other election promises that may help the town and retailers there, such as the Conservatives’ plan to “provide 105 towns in the UK with a £20m endowment fund for local people to change their town’s future”, including projects such as “reviving high streets or bringing new housing to town centres”.

That doesn’t sound like it could do much – earlier this year, Middlesbrough alone was awarded £20m through the government’s Levelling Up Partnerships programme.

Ultimately, both in the North East and the rest of the country, the future of the high street will depend on the outcome of big issues at the heart of this general election: national economic success, including equipping people with the right skills to achieve that, and a lower cost of living.

If the winner can achieve that, then the conditions on which successful retail depends, such as enhanced consumer spending power, might be created.

At a more local level, the town will probably need to be more reliant on the endeavours of local rather than national politicians.

Middlesbrough has a directly elected mayor, while Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen – the Conservative ‘red wall’ poster boy – has pushed on with ambitious schemes to reignite the regional economy, with projects ranging from infrastructure to industrial development. 

Initiatives driven by local bodies to promote small businesses, such as those in Baker Street – a livelier area of the town centre close to the university – and the Orange Pip markets also show another face of Middlesbrough town centre and its retail and leisure proposition, and may help create an appeal that differentiates it from Teesside Park. 

The pitfalls of attempts by public bodies to run commercial businesses are evident, though, in that empty House of Fraser store once regarded as an “investment” by the council.

In the end, it is local action that will make a difference in Middlesbrough and places like it. It’s the job of whoever wins the general election to create the environment nationally for that to happen.

At a time of disillusionment with the established parties following years of chaos, and when the country’s finances are in a parlous state that will hinder transformation, retailers in troubled town centres – like voters in Middlesbrough and elsewhere – will believe in change when they see it. They will likely be waiting for some time.