LGA warns over impact on high streets of relaxed permitted development rights

High streets could be overrun with clusters of betting shops and payday loan companies as a result of changes to the planning rules on permitted development rights, councils have claimed.

The Local Government Association urged the Government “to let local areas decide for themselves where it would be beneficial to relax planning rules”.

It added: “This would make it easier for new shops and businesses to open up where they are wanted and needed, while protecting local democracy and reducing the risk of unintended consequences.”

The LGA highlighted the temporary change of use provisions in the General Permitted Development Order coming into force on 30 May.

The association also pointed to the potential impact of reforms to the rules on home extensions, turning offices into residential accommodation, changes of use for state funded schools, and the installation of fixed broadband structure.

The LGA warned that the Government’s attempt to breathe new life into empty buildings risked doing the opposite. 

Cllr Mike Jones, chairman of the association’s environment and housing board, said: “People tell us that they’re fed up of having their local high streets filled with betting shops and payday loan companies. 

“We have been clear that if we’re to get people back out shopping in their local town centres, we need to give them more say on what type of businesses and shops open there. Instead, from today they will have less.”

Cllr Jones added: “There’s a very real danger that, in chasing a short-term boost, this panic measure could end up creating real problems in our high streets and doing lasting damage to our towns and cities. This could potentially drain the life from our high streets.”

He said planning controls were not there to make life difficult for new businesses but as a form of democratic quality control which ensured new shops and businesses would be good for the area and the people who lived there.

A spokesman from the Department for Communities and Local Government insisted that the Government was cutting red tape to make it easier to get redundant buildings in town centres back into productive use and help increase footfall on local high streets.

He said: “The alternative is boarded up, empty buildings which create a cycle of decline. Councils already have the ability to tackle the cumulative impact of development.”

The spokesman pointed to councils’ powers under the Gambling Act to licence betting shops and address problems by individual premises.

He added: “Councils have a range of planning powers to protect a local amenity if there are localised issues; for example, the London borough of Barking and Dagenham has been consulting on an Article 4 Direction and associated supplementary planning guidance to address the proliferation of betting shops in the local area.”