Retail Planning Guidelines 2012 present opportunity for City and Town Centres, if Local Authorities change their game

The Retail Planning Guidelines 2012 were published on 1 May 2012 with commentary by Minister Phil Hogan on importance of vital and viable town centres for cities and towns. Minister for Planning and Housing Jan O’Sullivan talks about “refocusing towards plan-led development in addressing the needs of the retail sector by determining a proper evidence base of the need for retail development and ensuring a proactive approach in facilitating the meeting of those needs”. A lot of faith is placed in retail strategies, retail hierarchies , and sequential development while at the same time increasing convenience floor space caps in the interest of “both competitiveness in the retail sector and strong city and town centres.” So really nothing new in these principles from previous versions of the Guidelines. In practice this has been a mixed-bag. While the line has been held on some out-of-town convenience and shopping centres (generally by An Bord Pleanala), the amount of floorspace provided for in the retail strategies, according to hierarchy, location and type have had a negative effect on town centres (as far as anyone can tell given that theres no information collected on this – and certainly not in the Forfas report. What is new is the five key policy objectives that must guide planning authorities in addressing retail development issues: 1. Ensuring that retail development is plan-led; 2. Promoting city/town centre vitality through a sequential approach to development; 3. Securing competitiveness in the retail sector by actively enabling good quality development proposals to come forward in suitable locations; 4. Facilitating a shift towards increased access to retailing by public transport, cycling and walking in accordance with the Smarter Travel strategy; and 5. Delivering quality urban design outcomes. These objectives present a much stronger focus on town centres, and Objective 5 in particular really places an onus on the quality of development. Of course, Objective 3 (the Asda/Walmart clause) could be used to go a different direction altogether (in the interest of competitiveness of course). The Guidelines come down heavy on Retail Warehouse Parks, which are struggling, and looking to broaden their use-base to fill units, yet remain grey enough in the categorisation of comparison goods to require testing to An Bord Pleanala and possibly the High Court. Its all very well to talk the talk on Vitality and Viability, but a lot of hard work needs to be done on this. There is a huge information-gap on town centres, on all the important matters referred to Annex 2. This can’t be left to planning consultants to address in Retail Impact Statements. Rather, town centre health checks or indicators need to be removed entirely from the context of development proposals, as an open-source of information for town and city centres to be able to say – this is where we are – and here is an action plan for what we can do. This requires a huge change in mind-set for Local Authorities and Business Associations/Chambers of commerce. It requires a proactive approach and leadership; not the kind where a County Manager comes up with a hobby-hourse initiative or development, but leadership across public and private sectors working in partnership. The Design Guidelines attached to Guidelines are irrelevant, and sum up a problem in mind-set... its all about the big new development, an architectural statement or the big man in town who is going to come to the rescue. This is the opposite of maintenance, management and care. Its down to political will and leadership, and a culture that either wants to aspire to quality living places or play to the lowest common denominator. Some cities and towns will follow the quality route, and many will continue to wowed by the prospect of the next big thing.