Nigel Farage brands South Shields 'town in decline' - Reform leader vows to revive high street

Nigel Farage has called for town centre parking charges to be scrapped in a bid to breathe fresh life into struggling North East high streets.

The Reform UK leader was back on the campaign trail in our region on Tuesday, visiting South Shields and Gateshead ahead of a crunch set of local elections on May 7.

Nigel Farage on King Street

The divisive Clacton MP received a decidedly mixed reception as he wandered down King Street in South Shields on a sunny Tuesday morning, with some locals shouting that he was “not welcome” in their town while others were keen to speak to him.

Mr Farage called South Shields a “town in decline” and said he would “really urge hard” that prospective Reform councillors slash parking fees if they take control of South Tyneside Council next month.

Labour’s North East mayor Kim McGuinness, who launched a task force aimed at producing radical changes to boost the region’s high streets last year, called his comments “populist smoke and mirrors”.

Labour-run South Tyneside, Gateshead, Sunderland, and Newcastle councils are staging ‘all out’ elections next month – meaning that every council seat in those areas is up for grabs, rather than the usual one-third.

Latest polling from More In Common has predicted that Labour could lose more than 1,500 council seats across the country, with both Reform and the Green Party on course for massive gains.

Nigel Farage: South Shields is a ‘town in decline’

Speaking in South Shields, Mr Farage said there appeared to have been “serious decline” since he visited the town as UKIP leader during the 2013 by-election to replace David Miliband as MP.

He did, however, praise the work to relocate South Tyneside College into the town centre – a project awarded more than £18 million by the mayor last year, as well as further public funding from the Government.

Mr Farage said: “We have a high street in decline, a town in decline. That is not completely uncommon around the country.

“What was really interesting, I was talking to a couple of our local candidates about what can be done to get people back. One thing is that the college is being built, which is terrific and I happen to know the developer behind that. That is going to bring a lot of young people back into the street. That is good news.

“But a couple of my candidates mentioned parking as an issue and I spoke to two business owners, both of whom said parking charges are killing this place.”

The Reform leader, who later visited Gateshead High Street, added: “I am going to really urge hard with all of our candidates when I have a big sit down with them later on, for goodness sake get rid of parking charges and give this high street and others in this area half a chance.”

Eddie Watson was among the first locals to confront Mr Farage as he stepped onto King Street and called him a “horrible man”.

The 71-year-old told the LDRS: “I am worried that Reform will be running things here, massively worried. He thinks he is Trump.”

Café owner Alan Clark, however, was one of those keen to raise the parking issue.

The 66-year-old said: “People want somewhere that has free parking, so they go to the Galleries instead. If we had three hours free parking here it would attract a lot of people.

“That is the only way we are going to get more footfall here. People want more shopping here, they want an enhanced market and they [the council] have done nothing. It is time for a change.”

Ms McGuinness said on Tuesday that Labour was “racing ahead with investments in our region” to improve high streets, like South Tyneside College’s new campus.

She added: “I bet during Farage’s flying visit he didn’t go see the incredibly popular railway quarter [in Gateshead], where people are getting high street jobs after investment, and he’ll want to quiet plans to revive the high street as we reopen Gateshead Quays. It’s just populist smoke and mirrors from Farage.”