- Planning permission for retail warehousing will be subject to conditions to control the character of the development, the size of individual units and the range and type of goods sold, such as limiting to bulky goods only. This action will be taken to avoid the introduction of a wider range of comparison goods to be sold which, given the out-of-centre location, may negatively affect the vitality of defined centres in Policy CEN 2 and undermine national planning policies on town centres and retail.
- As such, all proposals for main town centre uses beyond defined boundaries will need to comply with the sequential test approach as set out in the NPPF and in Policy CEN 4.
- Local shops perform an important role in meeting the day-to-day needs of communities and are a vital part of creating sustainable communities, reducing the need for people to travel. Small community shops of no more than 280 square metres are afforded greater importance in the 2020 Use Classes Order as the retail market changes, with Use Class F2 providing increased protection for such facilities that predominantly sell essential goods including food and when they are more than 1 km from a similar shop. Proposals that would result in their loss will therefore be required to satisfy the council that similar shops are within a 1 km radius walking distance in order to ensure that sufficient local convenience provision exists following the development.
- Access to essential food provision is particularly important in locations outside our designated centres. The council will refer to the Priority Places for Food Index111 developed by the Consumer Data Research Centre at the University of Leeds which identifies neighbourhoods at most risk of food insecurity and where interventions to help people access affordable food will be most valuable. The index includes several domains and it is possible to find out if the level of need is influenced by a lack of retail provision, poor access to online supermarket deliveries or high levels of deprivation or need.
- Conditions may be attached to planning permissions to restrict the range of goods to be sold, making sure that the shops continue to serve local day-to-day needs, rather than attracting customers from some distance away.
111 See https://data.cdrc.ac.uk/dataset/priority-places-food-index-version-2