Gary I would interprete Policy EC16 as looking to assess the impact of a proposal for a town centre use in an out of centre location (site a) on a number of areas. One of those will be the impact that the proposal would have on an allocated site (site b) which is also outside of the town centre and is being developed for a town centre use in accordance with the development plan. This makes sure that the impact of an out of centre proposal (site a) on an out of centre allocation (site b) (which is being developed) is taken into account. I am not sure that my explanation is very clear – its the best I can do! I though I was going to interprete Policy EC2 as relating to ‘Class B’ economic uses, but then I noticed that at point 4, the PPS defines economic development as including ‘B use classes, public and community uses and main town centre uses.’ I think I would be inclined to interprete point h of Policy EC2 as requiring LPAs to safeguard the different allocations for their different uses – your LDD must separately allocate and safeguard the different land uses according to the evidence of need and of reasonable prospect of take up. I would also be interested in others views.
