Archived press release

Tougher planning controls needed to save the high street

10 July 2008

Friends of the Earth is demanding that reforms to the retail planning system genuinely protect town centres and small shops, and curb the growth in out-of-town supermarkets. The Department for Communities and Local Government is consulting on changes to Planning Policy Statement 6: Planning for Town Centres, and proposes to remove the 'needs test' and replace it with a weaker 'impact test'.

Friends of the Earth believes the needs test is a vital tool for local authorities to control out-of-town development. It must be strengthened and integrated into a new set of policies that encourage genuine retail diversity and place a stronger emphasis on more sustainable patterns of development and carbon reduction.

Friends of the Earth does not consider the proposed 'impact test' will successfully halt unsustainable, out-of-town development and promote retail diversity, small shops, and thriving town centres. Wider considerations of sustainable transport and access, and social inclusion must be an integral part of such a test and not considered as an add-on.

Helen Rimmer, Friends of the Earth's food campaigner said:
"These plans signal continued Government support for the supermarket take-over, disguised as a good thing for small shops.

"We need tougher planning rules to protect our high streets from the growth of out-of-town mega stores and measures to promote genuine diversity in shops while tackling climate change.

"Unless these proposals are strengthened, the supermarkets will bulldoze their way through them as they have done every other well-positioned planning law."

Notes

• Friends of the Earth agrees that a strengthening of current retail planning policy is needed. Although PPS6 has successfully refocused development towards town centres, it has not yet significantly curbed the growth of out-of-town supermarkets or the loss of diversity of shops and markets in town centres. However, we do not agree that the town centre first policy will be made more effective by the removal of the need test.

• Instead of removing a key test, the needs test should be integrated into a more robust set of new policies to make the town centre first policy more effective, to place a stronger emphasis on more sustainable patterns of development, carbon reduction, and to encourage genuine retail diversity.

• In a survey of local authority planning officers conducted by Friends of the Earth last year, 96% of officers believed that the need test is important (86% believed very important) and 81% believed that the absence of a need test would make it harder to focus new development in town centres. See Shopping the Bullies: www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/shopping_the_bullies.pdf

• The proposed 'impact test' does not give any new powers or tools to local authorities to halt unsustainable, out-of-town development and promote retail diversity in town centres. Wider considerations of sustainable transport and access, and social inclusion must be an integral part of such retail planning policy and not be given secondary consideration. There are far too many get-out clauses in the proposals and unless changed they will not do enough to tackle climate change and deliver sustainable and diverse town centres.

• The recent report by the Competition Commission failed to do anything to halt the takeover of our high streets by the big four supermarkets, and it is even more vital that we now have a strong planning policy to support existing town centres and local shops.

• The Government must now introduce planning policy for town centres which positively supports diverse retailing, sustainable patterns of development and thriving local shops, and clamps down on the relentless growth of out-of-town supermarkets.

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust