Labour was doing all it could, we heard, to encourage the continued success of the retail-led regeneration of Britain's towns and cities. And the Tories, we were told, would do even more.

Over two days in Manchester's Bridgewater Hall, Phil Woolas, Labour's Minister of State for Communities and Local Government, and Alan Duncan, the Conservative Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, both heaped praise on the way the shopping centre industry was revitalising Britain's towns and cities.

Woolas promised that Labour's proposed reforms to local government, published last month, would give local councils the incentive to involve private enterprise much more in local development plans. There would be much more joined-up thinking between the dozens of government and local agencies involved in town and city developments. And with the government continuing to streamline the planning process, the shopping centre industry would be much better able to get on with the job of bringing jobs and prosperity back to our urban areas, he assured us.

The Shadow Minister promised much the same. A future Tory government would be a government for towns and cities, said Duncan, not just the countryside and suburbia. And it would hand back more power over development strategy and planning to local communities.

But the devil is in the detail, and we shall have to wait until the next Queen's Speech to find out just what Labour's local government reforms will mean - or indeed whether Gordon Brown will have managed to delay them until it's his turn to be PM.

We will also have to wait until who knows when before a future Tory minister will tell us what his or her government's actual plans are for urban regeneration.

The shopping centre industry was hugely important to this country, said Woolas. The figures spoke for themselves. "Over 10 per cent of people in employment work in retail. And if you take in retail development, that figure moves up to 20 per cent," he said. "The only trade union that is growing in membership as the result of recruitment is the shopworkers' union USDAW, which reflects the increasing importance of the sector to our economy and to our prosperity."

The recently published White Paper on local government reform was one of the most important areas of government policy for our continuing future economic success, he said.

Future policy

At the heart of the White Paper were three documents that local authorities, in conjunction with the private sector and other partners, would be obliged to deliver, said Woolas. The first was the Local Development Framework, setting out future strategy for development in towns and cities. The second was the Sustainable Communities Strategy, showing a council's plans for improving health, education and job opportunities. And the third was the Local Area Agreement.

"The Local Area Agreement is a financial arrangement between the council and other agencies and public bodies at the local level. All too often in this country public sector agencies do not have the financial incentive to work with other agencies. What the Local Area Agreement will do is tie in all government agencies and other partners, including the private sector, into sharing the same goals and outlooks, to work towards a common goal."

That would allow central government to provide funding in the form of a pooled budget so that these agencies could work together, said Woolas. "It is the biggest change in the financial relationship between local and central government since the health service was taken out of local authority control in the 1940s," he said.

"But what I constantly hear from the private sector, particularly your industry, is the need for clear decisions, the need for stability and predictability in public finance. I believe we're making great improvements towards that goal."

Councils already know their funding for two years ahead, said Woolas. "From April 2008 councils will know their funding for three years and will be expected to pass that stability on to other agencies, including the business ratepayer."

Woolas added that the government was promoting clearer, stronger leadership within local councils to aid transparent decision-making and create a timetable in which to work.

Another area of policy that was slowly bearing fruit was the government's strategy for the night-time economy, said Woolas, which in many cases had underpinned the renaissance of town centres. "The devolving of licensing powers to local authorities, for example, has allowed councils to work with the business sector as partners in the development of the night-time sector," he said.

Similarly, said Woolas, the new Business Improvement Districts were being taken up in a large number of areas.

But perhaps the most important area of policy for the shopping centre industry was the issue of planning, Woolas acknowledged. "Our planning policy is showing signs of success. We are asking planning authorities to have a clear vision for the future development of their areas and to plan positively to help businesses secure their developments in ways that will not prove unacceptable. The planning system is now more accessible, flexible and faster than it was. In 2005/6, 89 per cent of all retail planning applications were decided within the statutory time of 13 weeks."

an enhanced partnership

One of the key objectives in the proposed reform of local government was to give greater economic incentives to local authorities to improve the business investment climate in their areas, said Woolas.

"We have provided the Local Authority Business Growth Initiative scheme. If a local authority can increase the trend of business start-ups in its area, it is allowed to keep 70 per cent of the business rates that are generated.

"So by providing a stable business rate and an incentive to local authorities to grow businesses in their area, this will better enhance the partnership between the private sector and local authorities. We want all councils to be pro-business and to provide the climate for them to be so."

Then it was the Opposition's turn to heap praise on the shopping centre industry. "Retail developers play an absolutely central role in the redevelopment of our city centres," enthused Duncan. "High quality shopping opportunities can absolutely transform city centre office deserts into destinations which people want to visit. And shoppers attract further investment such as cafés and restaurants. We want to encourage the transformative effect of retail development in sustainable urban regeneration," said Duncan.

"But it may be said, sadly, that the Conservative Party has for a long time now been seen as only a rural and sub-urban party. But we are starting to take cities seriously," insisted Duncan. "David Cameron has appointed Lord Heseltine to head the party's Cities Taskforce and he's appointed a shadow minister to each of our major cities - I've been given the Tyneside area.

"And I intend to test all of our trade and industry policies through the 'Tyneside Test' by asking exactly what each policy would mean for real long-term growth in the area."

However, today, urban areas all too often feel let down by Labour's complicated and contradictory bureaucratic schemes which take power away from local people, suggested Duncan. "Recent government regeneration policies have been too centralised, too unresponsive to the needs of local communities and, most importantly, they fail to understand the vital importance of enterprise in urban regeneration.

"Businesses that should be playing a far more important role in bringing prosperity to our city centres have been overburdened with more taxes, higher costs and more regulation."

To succeed in the long term, said Duncan, major projects such as a shopping centre development needed to engage with local communities and become a transformative part of local life. "Government on its own cannot deliver regeneration, which requires the willingness of commercial concerns to invest and develop profitable businesses."

And that meant helping businesses make money, said Duncan. "It requires a stable macro-economic climate to give business the confidence to invest for the long term and consumers the confidence to spend. In our economic policy, stability will come first."

"The British retail sector is a world leader and a Conservative government will encourage its continuing success. As the headline of a recent interview I gave had it: 'No business, no nothing'."

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