It will replace NPPG 8 which, in 1998, was entitled “Town Centres and Retailing”. The updated version recognises that retailing is not the only important aspect of town centres.
We comment only briefly on this important draft SPP regarding its relevance to Green Belts. Its aim is “to direct development primarily towards town centres to protect and enhance their vitality and viability.”
Town centres have been going through something of a crisis, especially those of small and medium sized towns. Although it is the largest settlement in Argyll and Bute, Helensburgh is a small town, having fewer than 20,000 residents. Part of that crisis is in retailing as city shopping malls, supermarkets, catalogue shopping and internet shopping take an ever-increasing amount of trade away from local independent traders. Rather belatedly perhaps the value of those local independent retails is being recognised as of community value. (See the government’s report “The Impact of Large Foodstores on Market Towns and District Centres”, 1998, and the more recent report by the New Economics Foundation “Ghost Town Britain”, both of which see large foodstores and multinational warehouse type outlets as damaging to town centres.)
Another part of the problem is the preference of developers to build in greenfield sites (which do not involve removing derelict previous structures and can have tax advantages to the developer) rather than in “brownfield” sites or “brown sky” sites – i.e. vertical development where town centre space is inadequately used due to single storey structures taking up land.
The relevance to Green Belts is that the new government policy on Town Centres dove-tails with that on Green Belts and, in our opinion, the two SPPs should be viewed as two sides of the same coin. Both seek to protect Green Belts from unnecessary development.
Briefly, the draft SPP 8 recommends “mixed” uses of town centres, including residential and leisure purposes as well as retail. These help to provide not only vitality but also security. Vertical development and higher density are specifically encouraged.
Argyll and Bute Council has taken some action, in conjunction with
Scottish Enterprise Dunbartonshire,following the Helensburgh Study
Group's detailed vision report entitled 'Helensburgh:
a Town for the future'. Together they commissioned
the Yellow
Book study about
Helensburgh’s waterfront and town centre. This report (which
can be seen in the Library) has proposals for the waterfront and
pier areas as well as town centre. The issue of vertical development
is especially appropriate since Helensburgh was originally designed
for multi-storey building at its centre (“living above the
shop”) but over time a number of single storey structures have
appeared in the centre, some of them not attractive. There are also
eyesore sites such as the old drill hall. The potential for an overhaul
of our town centre seems overdue and might help the independent retailers
at the same time.
A strong Green Belt policy can help to force developers to focus on the centre rather than go for the easier targets of green fields on the town’s periphery.
Town fringe supermarkets are especially harmful to small and medium sized towns since they can become rivals to town centre retailers, thereby speeding up the decline of the centres. We need to support our retailers. Helensburgh is fortunate to have many good independent retailers. As the New Economics Foundation points out, local retailers recycle money in the area while national and multinational stores draw much of it out of the community to fund headquarters and to pay shareholders.
'Helensburgh Town Centre' photo courtesy of Graeme
Nelson
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