Regional planning guidance has put a block on any further retail development around Liberty’s Lakeside regional shopping centre in Essex.
A government-backed review of the East of England Regional Assembly’s (EERA) draft plan, published in late June, calls for a ban on any further retail around the Lakeside basin.
The report says that although it supports the development of a long-term strategy for upgrading the area which includes Liberty subsidiary Capital Shopping Centres’ Lakeside centre and retail parks owned by Land Securities and The Junction this had to be “within a context of no net gain in retail floorspace”.
A spokesman for Thurrock Thames Gateway Development Corporation, which is masterplanning the Lakeside regeneration, said: “Preventing new retail floorspace at Lakeside would seriously compromise the target of creating 26,000 jobs for Thurrock and Essex and be damaging to the Gateway as a whole.
“We will urge the secretary of state to give greater weight to these wider economic and social arguments.
“The Lakeside basin constitutes a regional economic centre and its role must be protected and enhanced if the regeneration of the Essex part of the Gateway is not to be seriously compromised.”
Kay Chaldecott, managing director of CSC, said: “We are not going to be disheartened by the report and will have to sit and cogitate on it for a bit.
“A lot of our plans for Lakeside also do not just revolve around retail. Mixed-use is also important,” she added.
The report into the draft plan has also upset a number of developers wanting to create new satellite towns in the region. It proposes to exclude them as growth areas in favour of existing town centres.
References: EGi News 10/07/06
