Debate contribution: High Street and Town Centre Rejuvenation

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 4 November 2024.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

4 November 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

High Street and Town Centre Rejuvenation

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4625902

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. Under our current system, our city and town centres are carved up by private property, and property rights dominate all the claims to our shared spaces. However, if we are serious about recognising the importance of our city and town centres and our high streets as the social fabric of our communities, which they are, we need to acknowledge that property rights have, effectively, alienated us from our own public spaces. Our towns and high streets belong to those who live and work there, and they should be shaped by the needs of communities and designed to promote social connection and inclusion. My amendment focuses on making our towns and high streets more accessible to people with disabilities and mobility issues, and it pushes back against a deeply unpopular idea, continually floated by the party that tabled the motion, that shops should open for longer on Sundays. When it comes to accessibility, any strategy to rejuvenate our high streets and town centres must prioritise accessible infrastructure for people with disabilities and mobility issues. Shockingly, research from Disability Action shows that nine out of 10 disabled people feel that public transport and buildings are inaccessible to them. Furthermore, nine out of 10 disabled people experience serious challenges with street accessibility in their local areas. Nine out of 10 disabled people experience challenges accessing high street shops. Every day in our town and city centres, disabled people are forced to deal with poorly maintained pavements and unacceptable barriers and obstructions, including pavement parking. Those barriers, effectively, stop disabled people from carrying out their day-to-day tasks, but they also have a serious negative impact on people's mental and physical well-being, limiting opportunities for social interaction and independent living and access to employment. In the face of those social and economic barriers, no money has been allocated to the DFC access and inclusion grants. Those grants fund projects such as Changing Places and help to make sport, leisure, arts and heritage more accessible. We urgently need better investment in Changing Places and accessible transport solutions such as the Disability Action transport scheme. People with disabilities and mobility issues should be placed at the centre of discussions about planning, so that everyone can move around our public spaces easily and safely, but they are usually an afterthought, at best. The Alliance Party representatives on Belfast City Council have always, to my knowledge, pushed for an extension to Sunday trading hours, despite vocal opposition from workers, trade unions, independent retailers and small businesses. I say, politely, that they are out of touch on that issue. The fact that the motion was proposed by a party that refuses to drop the idea of extended Sunday trading hours should be a concern for all of us who care about workers, their families and our communities. We will oppose any attempt to extend Sunday trading hours, whether it is under the guise of high street and town centre rejuvenation or any other buzzword. The extension of Sunday trading hours would benefit only big businesses and chains; it would harm workers and small businesses. Retail and hospitality workers constantly tell us that they do not want that change. Their union — the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW) — surveyed its members in the North about the issue, and 92% of them — 92% — opposed the idea of extended Sunday opening hours. If hours were extended, workers in large shops would come under more pressure to work on Sundays, which would mean people having less time to spend with their families and in their communities. Extending Sunday trading hours also makes —.

Go ahead.

I thank the Member for her point. I will come on to that. Speaking more generally, extending Sunday trading hours makes zero economic sense. There is a litany of evidence and analysis that shows that deregulation would not only bring no economic benefits to our high street but would harm the viability of small businesses. Small retailers can already open for longer hours than other businesses can on Sundays, and many of those are independent local businesses that rely on the boost in trade on Sunday mornings in particular. Allowing larger stores to open for longer on Sundays would not mean people having more money to spend — trickle-down does not work — or more jobs being created. There would be no economic vibrancy or rejuvenation of our high streets as a result of extended trading hours. On the subject of the Member's intervention, when USDAW members in the North were asked what would make Belfast a more attractive city for leisure or family reasons or for visiting in general, extended retail opening hours came at the bottom of a very long list. The retail and hospitality workers of our town centres and high streets have their own lives. They are parents and carers, and many of them already work long, atypical hours and find it difficult to balance work and family life. To refer, again, to the Member's point, those workers already feel pressured to work for longer: extended opening hours on Sunday would only add more stress. USDAW also found that 68% of members surveyed already come under pressure to work on Sundays. Rather than there being the flexibility that the Member referred to, people already feel pressured by their employers to work on Sundays. In theory, workers have the right to opt out of Sunday working. In practice, however, many are pressurised by their management to take on Sunday shifts, and, in many cases, if they refuse, their working hours and pay are cut. That is unacceptable, but it is real behaviour. Employers are under no obligation to replace a worker's Sunday hours with a shift elsewhere in the week. Effectively, many retail and hospitality workers cannot afford to exercise their legal rights. The strengthening of workers' rights should be at the heart of all discussions about the rejuvenation of our high streets and town centres.

In reality, workers' hours have always been contested, certainly since the beginning of industrial capitalism. To that effect, somebody once said that the shortening of the working day is freedom's basic prerequisite. That rings absolutely true. Protecting and maximising free time is at the core of the ethos of the trade union movement and all those who want to live in a better, fairer society. Any suggestion of coercing retail and hospitality workers into working more hours on Sundays would be a completely regressive move, especially as more of us are actively fighting for a four-day working week. If we value a society where people have more free time to spend with their friends and family, and where they are happier and better rested and can participate fully in community life, we must resist regressive attempts to expand the working week. I urge Members to support the amendment in my name, and I am happy to support the other amendments.

1,162 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:28 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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