I hope that you’ve had a good and relaxing Christmas and that you have been able to spend some time with your loved ones. I also hope that for those of who haven’t been able to see your loved ones, for whatever reason – whether it is illness, distance, work commitments or the weather – you have been able to have at least speak or communicate in some way.

At this time of year, I also want to pay particular tribute to those servicemen and women, who are serving in hostile and dangerous conditions on behalf of our country. There are many families in Hartlepool who are apart from sons, husbands, boyfriends and fathers who are serving in the Armed Forces. Christmas and New Year must inevitably feel empty without them. The bravery and dedication are recognised by the whole country, and I hope that will provide some comfort, as well as enormous pride to those families.

It’s now the time of year when people assess the year that’s gone and look forward to the year that’s only a few days away. I think that 2010 has been a significant year: this country has seen a general election which brought in the first peacetime coalition government for 90 years. We are still suffering from the impact of the deepest global recession that the world has seen since the 1930s, and the negative connotations that this has in terms of collapsing businesses and job losses. Some countries’ economies – I’m thinking particularly of Ireland, although Spain, Italy and Portugal are not too far behind - are still dangerously teetering on the edge that will have an impact on our own country. On a more trivial nature, we saw England humiliated in the World Cup and Pools having to deal with the three-point deduction that almost saw us relegated. So, England’s football team was disappointed bitterly and it’s been a difficult year to be a Pools fan. Some things never change. For Hartlepool, we have seen the eyes of the world on us through the Tall Ships, with the town putting a smile on the world’s face for all the right reasons, thanks to the warmth of the welcome provided by you lot.

2011 will be difficult. As a town we have seen more than our fair share of job losses, and I fear that the coming year will see even more. I particularly worry that the imminent rise in VAT will hurt people. Not only will people see bills go up, they will probably have less disposable income to spend, which I think will have an impact on the retail industry. Less money spent in shops will mean more unemployment for shopworkers, more shop closures, and more gloom. The cuts in public spending will hit towns like Hartlepool the hardest, meaning that we will see a sharp contraction in the town’s economy without any corresponding rise in an alternative economic model.

However, the New Year should be a time for a fresh start and resolutions to try harder. I don’t want to start 2011 as a doom monger. Hartlepool has faced difficult times before and we have pulled through. We will do so again. The future economic prosperity for the town – based on modern manufacturing and the different strands of the energy industry – are tantalisingly within grasp. Most of all, the spirit of the Hartlepool people, founded on adversity and generosity, and with a healthy dash of cheekiness and irreverence, will overcome the difficulties of the next year and hopefully mean that 2011 will be better than this year. I hope you can raise a glass to the future, and wish for health, happiness, prosperity, and Pools being promoted. Happy New Year!

This is my final Mail column before Christmas. Last Friday I attended a ceremony to commemorate the 97th anniversary of the bombardment of the Hartlepools.

It strikes me every year just how close this atrocity took place to Christmas. Families getting ready for work and school in 1914 were really no different to families in 2011. Kids will have to have been roused from their beds whilst at the same being very excited about Christmas in little over a week’s time. People will have been very conscious of the First World War – many husbands and sons may have joined up in the first flush of excitement, believing that the war “would be over by Christmas” – but the battles in France would have been a long way from Hartlepool. It is difficult, if not downright impossible, for us to comprehend how bewildering, but above all how frightening, a direct attack on our town would have felt. In the attack, 118 people, including 37 children, the youngest being poor Benjamin Lofthouse, from Belk Street and aged just seven months, died.

The ceremony to commemorate the bombardment of the Hartlepools is an important event for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, it affected Hartlepool and West Hartlepool deeply. The effects of the attack not only killed many of our townspeople, but left physical and mental strains on people and families for decades. The fact that Hartlepool was chosen by the enemy to direct the first attack on the British mainland for centuries gives an indication of the supreme importance of our town to the country’s manufacturing and industrial might. The German fleet was trying to destroy and dismantle the town’s docks, shipyards and steelworks to hinder the war effort. And the first shots of the Bombardment killed Private Theo Jones of the 18th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry. Private Theo Jones was a West Hartlepool lad – his mother lived in Ashgrove Avenue – and he had the sad distinction of becoming the first British soldier to be killed on British soil for nearly 200 years.

The centenary of the bombardment is fast approaching. 2014 will be an important year for the country to remember the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, but given Hartlepool’s significant role in the Great War, I want the Bombardment commemoration of 2014 to be recognised nationally rather than just locally. This Monday, it was Defence Questions in the House of Commons, and I asked a question to the Minister in terms of what the Government will do to support this important event for the town. I am also trying to secure a debate in the House of Commons for 16 December 2014 to commemorate the centenary of the Bombardment in Parliament on the actual day. I think it would be appropriate and fitting for the Secretary of State for Defence to attend the morning ceremony in 2014. I hope the Government will agree to this, given the significance of the day to the history of our country, not just the town.

As this is the last column before Christmas, I hope that everybody in Hartlepool is able to enjoy the holiday season. Hopefully people will have been good over the course of the year and that Father Christmas recognises this in their Christmas stocking. I’m not sure I should be wistfully regretting this, but I am now at the age when I don’t actually mind having socks for presents: a man cannot have too many pairs of socks. If Father Christmas is reading the Hartlepool Mail just before he sets off for his big work day, I hope he can deliver a copy of The Inbetweeners film on DVD, which I haven’t seen. It’s been a difficult year for the town in one way or another, but I hope the people of Hartlepool can spend time with their friends, family and loved ones. Have a Merry Christmas.

I hope you’re more or less done for Christmas shopping by now. The speed at which Christmas has crept up on us has shocked me – it only seems five minutes ago that it was October; now we have less than two weeks to go before the big day.

My only real task for Christmas shopping is to buy for Mrs Wright. I think she wants perfume, as she has been dropping some general hints in this direction, but I think the lovely patterned ironing board cover I have my eye on for her will be that much of a surprise when she unwraps it. I got her one last year too, so she really won’t be expecting another this year.

The chances are that the way you shop for Christmas presents has changed significantly in just a few short years. The economic difficulties will mean that, for far too many people, Christmas will be something of a financial difficulty. The Government’s increase in VAT to 20 per cent earlier this year won’t help either. When people are faced with ever rising bills for food, petrol and energy costs, it can’t be considered a surprise that our retailers are struggling.

But there are also longer term trends in shopping that are evolving. An increasing number of people now shop on-line: it is estimated that, despite the economic problems, an astonishing £7.5 billion will be spent on line this Christmas. There are also big shopping malls, such as the Metro Centre, which have changed the way we shop forever. It isn’t just the Metro – I was speaking to a group of ladies in Hartlepool a couple of weeks ago, and was surprised to hear that they had gone shopping to Sheffield Meadowhall for the day. There has also been an explosion of big supermarkets, where increasingly you can buy everything, including the kitchen sink.

This combination of economic difficulties and longer term changes in shopping habits have had an impact upon local shopping centres, including our own shopping centre of Middleton Grange. It was depressing to read earlier this year that Hartlepool had a higher than average number of vacant shop units. Given the struggle that the Hartlepool economy is facing, I’m depressed but not surprised. It will also be increasingly difficult for the shopping centre to be at full capacity when the town has three very big supermarkets, offering not only the widest possible range of goods but also free parking.

This is certainly not a problem that is confined to Hartlepool. I was in Darlington a couple of weeks ago, for the first time in a very long time, and was shocked to see many vacant units in that town’s shopping centre.

It is for this reason that the Government has commissioned Mary Portas to undertake a review of our local high streets. She presented Mary Queen of Shops on BBC, and is considered an expert on retail and shopping. Her report came out earlier this week, and made for interesting reading. I agree with her that local shopping centres and high streets should be at the heart of community, an area not merely for shopping, but for socialising, culture, health and creativity. She says in her report that: “The new high streets won’t just be about selling goods.”

She is right. The last Labour Government tried to encourage vacant units to be handed over to community and creative groups. Given Hartlepool’s strong community spirit, why can’t that happen more in our own shopping centre? Perhaps local businesses could be given a unit in the Middleton Grange to see how they get on? It would certainly be better than empty shop after empty shop.

You’ll never get back to a so-called golden age where high streets hark back to a traditional look of butcher, baker and candlestick maker. People’s lives and shopping habits have changed too much for that. But these places can reinvent themselves for the modern age and take on bold ideas to get people back shopping there again.