You'd be ashamed to bring someone here': The struggling billionaire-owned high street that shows Reform's road to No 10

"Under blue skies and bunting, the whole of County Durham seemed to turn out for the young Queen Elizabeth II. They lined the streets in their thousands, waving flags and marvelling at the grand royal procession weaving past their newly built homes. It was 27 May 1960 and the recently crowned queen was officially opening the town of Newton Aycliffe on her first provincial tour after the birth of her third child, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, three months earlier."

"Six miles north of Darlington, this industrial wasteland was chosen by William Beveridge for his pioneering new town in the late 1940s. Beveridge, the architect of the welfare state, personally oversaw its creation on the site of a former explosives shed used for experiments in the war. It would, he said, be a town of hopes and dreams and a paradise for housewives, which would be centred on a high street he named Beveridge Way."

"Nearly 80 years later, this single shopping precinct helps tell a different story. Of the 45 shops on Beveridge Way today, 23 are empty a vacancy rate nearly four times the national average. Those that are left include a Ladbrokes, Greggs, four charity shops, four discount stores and a pawnbroker. The banks are long gone the closest now a 90-minute round trip to Darlington by bus and the faded signs record an exodus of household names: Wilko, Select, Peacocks."

On 27 May 1960 the recently crowned Queen Elizabeth II officially opened Newton Aycliffe during a provincial tour following the birth of her third child. The new town, built from wartime rubble six miles north of Darlington, was chosen by William Beveridge and planned as a postwar model centered on a high street named Beveridge Way. A commemorative pamphlet recorded buglers and the celebratory crowd. Decades later Beveridge Way hosts 45 shops of which 23 lie empty, leaving betting shops, bakeries, charity and discount stores and a pawnbroker; banks have gone and some residents now face a 90-minute round trip for banking.

Read at www.theguardian.com