FSP Retail Blog

Future of town centres hinges on planning policy

Managing Director Geoff Nicholson comments in Retail Weeks' Letters To The Editor on an article from issue 12th March 2010. Link unavailable.

The recession was triggered by failure to control market trends, which are driven by often short-term investor interests, not by consideration of longer-term social benefits. So Catherine Tobiasinsky’s plea (RW, last week) that planning policy should not subvert market trends in breathtakingly short-sighted.
Yes, in-town retailing has been under pressure from out-of-town locations. But the economic and social costs of allowing town centres to die are incalculable. The Preston Tithebarn issue is nothing to do with its in-town location and everything to do with its potential impact on neighbouring towns.
It is the charge of the planning system to reconcile the demands of the market and social need. It makes sense, for the interests of society, to flavour in-town development. This is not to claim out-of-town schemes are never appropriate: the two are not mutually exclusive.
The bleak outlook for in-town retailing reflects the historic failures of planning policy. But to advocate its abolition is to remove all hope for a better future for town centres.

Geoff Nicholson
Managing Director
FSP Retail

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I am so pleased to hear someone speaking out against market trends..agree with you about the cost of allowing town centres to die...been up to Bradford recently and was shocked at the hole in what was once the city centre, not only is it now an ugly hole, but it takes ages to walk around it, to get to those parts of the city that remain...appreciate that the hole is now to become a park..but planners do need to protect town centres

rosie - 21 April 2010 16:43

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