Ms Alison Harvey:

Returning to the Dutch delegation that came over to us in June 2019, they went through designs they had worked up to extend the space in front of shops by 2 m to produce private space in the public realm. We are all taken by those designs, because some retail units will never return to that previous use, but hopefully some will. Perhaps the independents will come in, but that all remains to be worked out. A design-led solution exists, however, and the Dutch are implementing it. As I said, they are consolidating their town centres, and we could send information on that approach to the committee.