“Existing centre” includes “neighbourhood or local centres”
Like a chocolate box, if you will excuse the packaging, a major conurbation can offer an intriguing assortment of centres; which is all very well so long as you are not wrestling with the centre-preservation policies enshrined in PPG 6.
Of some help to developers of superstores, and other enterprises seeking customers galore, is a ministerial statement of February 1999 (the Caborn statement) to the effect that the need for such a development does not have to be demonstrated where the site is in an “existing centre”. Further help can now be found in Wandsworth London Borough Council v SSTLR [2003] 09 EG 196 (CS) where the Court of Appeal decided that that expression includes a “neigbourhood or local centre” as defined in RPG 3, which elaborates on how PPG 6 should be applied in London.
Good news for sure, but only after the developer has persuaded the planners that the locality in question has indeed earned a place in the hierarchy of centres set out in the relevant policy document.
The background to all this is well explained by Martin Edwards and John Martin in
The current operation of PPG 6 has been reviewed by former Secretary of State, John Gummer, who deplores “the scope for increasingly random decisions”: see
“Existing centre” includes “neighbourhood or local centres”
Like a chocolate box, if you will excuse the packaging, a major conurbation can offer an intriguing assortment of centres; which is all very well so long as you are not wrestling with the centre-preservation policies enshrined in PPG 6.
Of some help to developers of superstores, and other enterprises seeking customers galore, is a ministerial statement of February 1999 (the Caborn statement) to the effect that the need for such a development does not have to be demonstrated where the site is in an “existing centre”. Further help can now be found in Wandsworth London Borough Council v SSTLR [2003] 09 EG 196 (CS) where the Court of Appeal decided that that expression includes a “neigbourhood or local centre” as defined in RPG 3, which elaborates on how PPG 6 should be applied in London.
Good news for sure, but only after the developer has persuaded the planners that the locality in question has indeed earned a place in the hierarchy of centres set out in the relevant policy document.
The background to all this is well explained by Martin Edwards and John Martin in In need of clarification Estates Gazette 25 November 2000, p175.
The current operation of PPG 6 has been reviewed by former Secretary of State, John Gummer, who deplores “the scope for increasingly random decisions”: see Lay down the law on out-of-town planning Estates Gazette 15 March 2003, p59.
