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Planning Advisory Service (PAS)
Open group | Started - July 2012 | Last activity - Yesterday

PPS4 - Protection of allocated employment sites from retail development

Former Member, modified 14 Years ago.

PPS4 - Protection of allocated employment sites from retail development

PPS4 appears to make it unclear whether allocated employment sites (B uses) will continue to be protected from town centre uses. It is noted that at point (c) in Policy EC16 it states that "the impact of the proposal [town centre use] on allocated sites outside town centres being developed in accordance with the development plan" should be assessed. This however is unclear on what type of allocations this covers. Paragraphs 7.26 and 7.27 of the guidance notes does not really clarify this. I notice that in Policy EC2, point (h) states that where necessary land should be safeguarded from other uses. But it is unclear whether this means safeguarded for B uses only etc, or from othe uses which do not fall under 'economic development'. Has anybody got any thoughts on this?
Helen Willows, modified 14 Years ago.

Re: PPS4 - Protection of allocated employment sites from retail development

New Member Posts: 19 Join Date: 19/10/11 Recent Posts
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.