Geoff's View - July 2008
22.07.2008
“Proposed Revisions to PPS6” is not a headline to set the blood racing. However, the latest offering from Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary, should provoke outrage from all who care for the viability of UK town centres.
The continued well-being of town centres is in free-fall. The Government, the only body with the power and incentive to remedy the situation, has utterly failed either to grasp the urgency of the issue or to take decisive action.
The proposed revisions to Planning Policy Statement 6: “Planning for Town Centres” (2005) include the replacement of the “needs test” by an “impact test”. Guidance on conducting an “impact test” is yet to be published but the whole approach misses the point.
There is already over-capacity on the High Street. Retail sales in town centres have been growing, and are forecast to grow, more slowly than sales through other channels. By 2018, the majority of sales of Comparison Goods will be outside town centres.
Any retail development outside town centres, other than for convenience shopping, will hasten the demise of town centre retailing. It is already in decline, under the assault of edge-of-town supermarkets, selling an increasing proportion of non-foods, and the internet.
The current retail difficulties for town centre retailing are not simply “a difficult patch” but reflect a whole new retail environment – a new paradigm. Without vigorous and well-directed action by the Government, the future of town centre retailing, and therefore of town centres themselves, will continue to decline.
Apart from government, there is no one to speak for town centres. The representative bodies of both property and retail companies are heavily compromised by members with out-of-town interests. The dysfunctional planning system makes town centre development slow, complex and expensive.
Town centres are central to our communities, as Hazel Blears said, but not to our shopping. To have viable futures, town centres and their shopping both need to be imaginatively re-invented to enhance the users’ experience. Town centre retailing can offer its shoppers something valuable that cannot be matched out-of-town or on the internet. But to do this, each town needs to reflect its own character and the particular aspirations of its own citizens. It has to be Home Town, not Clone Town.
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A very useful way of keeping up to date with what's going on in retail.
Charles Denton
Property Director