City Centres & Alternative Residential

What Does NPF4 Mean for City Centres & Alternative Residential Uses?

NPF4 aims to enable city and town centres to be vibrant, healthy, creative, accessible and resilient by promoting the town centre first principle. NPF4 aims to facilitate the adaptation of centres to respond positively to long-term economic, environmental and societal changes.

NPF4 supports proposals that enhance and improve the vitality and viability of city, town and local centres and proposals that increase the mix of uses and the generation of footfall. It also no longer places a focus on retail being the predominant use in our town centres – a change from the previous status-quo. This is good news for proposals which are seeking to improve the mix of uses in our centres.

Policy 27 (City, Town, Local and Commercial Centres) seeks to ensure our centres are sustainable and a key part of this is the support for town centre living. This includes support for new build residential; reuse of vacant buildings where it can be demonstrated that the existing use is no longer viable and the proposed use adds to the viability and vitality of the area; and the conversion of vacant upper floors to residential uses.

In relation to alternative residential uses, Policy 16 (Quality Homes) supports proposals which improve affordability and choice in housing including provision of build to rent, homes for older people, homes for people undertaking further and higher education, and homes for specialist groups. NPF4 sets out that LDPs should provide a proportion of their local housing land requirements in city and town centres, however, no figure is provided for what proportion this should be.

Key Considerations for Future Development

ƒ The town centre first principle applies to development in city and town centres to promote footfall-generating development in such locations.

ƒ Residential uses at ground floor in our centres should demonstrate they will create attractive frontages, would not affect the vitality and viability of a shopping area and not result in an undesirable concentration of uses or dead frontages.

ƒ Development proposals for non-mainstream retail uses (e.g. hot food takeaways and betting offices) will not be supported if the provision would undermine the character of the area or the health and wellbeing of communities.