Topic 2.2
Local Shops

All communities should be able to access healthy food within a 10 minute walk from their home.

A serious concern across the region is the quality of town centres with a lack of diversity in the high street, shops selling similar products.

Vacant shops, loss of vitality.

Reliance on a car to access shops especially from edge of town residential development.

New Use Class definitions enable restaurants and cafes to open in a Class E premises with no planning conditions attached. They are then able to sell to the takeaway trade. Dessert parlours are not controlled through the planning system.

Many new estates that include a neighbourhood centre offer those retail units to chain operators ahead of building the centre and not offer them to smaller independent retailers.

Ensure residents of major residential development will have access to local services including a protected convenience store;

Identify and protect from change of use isolated shops (through removal of permitted development where necessary);

Apply Use Class F for new small isolated shops;

New estates to have smaller retail units providing essential services;

Protect and retain sections of high street in retail use where their loss would result in areas of deficiency of local services;

Encourage food retail diversity to attract local/independent businesses; offering variety and diversity to encourage linked trips and promote footfall;

Support changes of use of rural buildings for community shops: 

Support farm shops.

Map and identify food deserts;

The Food Environment Assessment Tool (Feat) – www.feat-tool.org.uk. Feat allows for detailed exploration of the geography of food retail access across England. Map, measure and monitor access to food outlets at a neighbourhood level, including changes over time. https://www.cedar.iph.cam.ac.uk/resources/ (food retail, active travel).

Local retail studies to include vacancy rates, diversity within centres i.e. over dominated by a particular use.

Accessible neighbourhoods

The principles of accessible neighbourhoods / compact cities / 15 minute neighbourhoods are of relevance to achieving a good food environment. This concept describes a place that is likely to be a healthy community. 

Assessment tools such as Scotland’s “Place Standard” would help planners and developers understand how a neighbourhood works. It identifies the assets of a place, as well as areas where a place could improve.

The opposite of an accessible neighbourhood is a food desert. A Food desert is an area where there is limited available to buy or access food, particularly fresh, healthy, and affordable produce. Food deserts are typically found in areas of high deprivation where there is already a risk of food poverty and of overweight and obesity. Residents must travel to get food, spend more money to buy food locally, or rely on less healthy products. PHE advise “A good mix of food ‘spaces’ within a local community can offer opportunities for local populations to access healthy foods”.

Support for a good food system is available through the 2020 classification of Use Classes. This empowers local planning authorities to make specific policies to be applied when a planning application is needed. F2(a) Shops (mostly) selling essential goods, including food, where the shop’s premises do not exceed 280 square metres and there is no other such facility within 1000 metres.

The new Class F – Local Community and Learning. This provides local planners with an opportunity to ensure convenience shops are provided within 1 kilometre of major new residential development and are protected through this classification. This would benefit both rural and suburban residents.

Affordable business rates 

Customers willing to shop locally.

Attractiveness of town centres.

Reduction in vacancy rate of units and reduced long term vacancies.

Diverse mix of retailers operating within centres.

Cheshire West and Chester Local Plan Policy DM 39 is a well used policy for protecting community facilities.
“Protection and provision of new community facilities including a local shop.”

Knowsley’s updated Town Centre Uses SPD has been a valuable resource which has contributed to ensuring there remains an appropriate concentration of gambling uses and hot food takeaway uses across Knowsley’s retail centres, protecting the vitality of centres and ensuring there is a suitable mix of uses within the centres: https://www.knowsley.gov.uk/planning-and-development/planning-policy/supplementary-planning-documents

Halton Council has undertaken a Food Access Study looking at the availability of items from a standard basket of fresh foods across the borough’s centres. Overall, the study found that there was good availability of food in the borough with 77% of residents living within 500m of a retail shop with good food availability. This identifies qualitative deficiencies that may support bolstering local shopping provision in certain locations. Access to Healthy and Affordable Food in Halton (2018): https://www3.halton.gov.uk/Documents/planning/planning%20policy/eip/EL046.pdf

Warrington Local Plan Policy DEV5 ‘Retail and Leisure Needs ‘ Sub-heading ‘ Sustaining local shops and services’: 6. The Council will seek to support the health and wellbeing of local communities by ensuring development proposals: a. plan positively for the provision and use of shared spaces, community facilities and other local services within defined centres and avoid the loss or change of use of viable convenience shops, cultural facilities, post offices and public houses where the loss would impact on the diversity of local services in communities; 65 b. avoid an overconcentration of hot food takeaways in accordance with the approach set out in the Council’s Hot Food Takeaway SPD; c. support the retention of viable local health and community facilities. 

St Helens Borough Local Plan Policy LPD10: Food and Drink, is a criterion-based policy and sets out where proposals for food and drink uses will be permitted. This is to promote the achievement of healthy, inclusive, and safe communities but also to ensure the creation and retention of vibrant town, district and local centres.

Halton https://hdawards.org/scheme/palace-fields-local-centre/ convenience shop healthy streets garden

https://www.tcpa.org.uk/collection/20-minute-neighbourhood-case-studies/