How Labour's Tees Valley Mayor candidate plans to save our high streets

Jessie Joe Jacobs has pledged to set up a £1.5 million High Street Innovation Fund if she is elected to help start-up businesses and community projects take over hundreds of empty units in the region.

She said shops are closing at a worrying rate across Tees Valley and the North East has the highest rates of empty shops in the whole country at 16% compared to just 9% in Greater London.

Jessie says it will be a catalyst for local businesses and start-ups to fund their ideas and could include housing, learning spaces, micro-businesses or facilities for arts and community groups.

She said: “I know that small businesses are the lifeblood of our town centres. It has been devastating to see the decline.

“For the last ten years I have worked on regeneration projects, sat on town centre teams, championed independent businesses, learned from other areas around the UK and Europe, and I know the high street can be saved.

“My Innovation Fund will kick start new ideas for the high street by giving innovators and entrepreneurs the funding and support they need to start new ventures and projects in our struggling town centres.”

Jessie announced the fund on the day she visited a formerly empty unit in Billingham town centre which has been turned into a boxing club.

Her strategy also includes setting up a High Street Task Force with a dedicated tsar to spearhead the transformation and support the five local authorities to share best practice and work closer together.

She will also set up a Business and Community Led Advisory Group to guide the work of the Task Force and hold her and the Combined Authority to account.

"We need to tackle the systemic issues such as the red tape and high costs that stifles innovation,” said Jessie.

“It is about unlocking their ideas and ambitions that will see our town centres transformed.”

Conservative Ben Houchen, the current serving mayor, is the only other confirmed candidate so far.