Councils to lose powers over high street planning under government proposal
Another attack on local democracy or a good move to re-invigorate our market towns? There is something deep seated which doesn’t work at the heart of the current planning system. Whether it justifies this sort of proposed over ruling of local democracy is a moot point. The article tells us:
Town halls face losing significant powers over the future of their high streets under Whitehall plans to allow shops to be converted into homes without planning permission.
In a move that signifies the widening acceptance that changing shopping habits and the economic downturn have sent the British high street into rapid retreat, the planning minister, Nick Boles, will this week propose scrapping existing rules protecting shop units, including banks and building societies, and allowing them to become housing.
He wants owners to have “permitted development rights” to make the transformation, in the same way that the government has allowed residents to build extensions of up to eight metres without applying for planning permission.
Local authorities will be asked to decide which shops should be considered “prime retail frontage” while the rest could be scrapped. There are around 7,000 empty shops in London alone and last year one senior retailer, Phil Wrigley, chairman of Majestic wine, admitted the high street was in “a death spiral”.