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I missed that 2 days ago the government did one of the most radical planning reforms in ages with its Use Class reform. It's potentially very, very good for how cities regenerate and reform their centres over the coming months and years.
As I understand it, classes A1 (shops), A2 (professional services), A3 (restaurants), B1 (offices) are being amalgamated into a new super class, dramatically named Class E.
This seems quite underwhelming, but is quietly revolutionary when it comes to flexibility.
This seems quite underwhelming, but is quietly revolutionary when it comes to flexibility.
At the moment, if you have a retail shop that is underperforming, you need to go through the entire planning process to change it to a restaurant, or an office, which may have more success. That adds time, costs money, and in the meantime, the shop is going under or closed up.
What this does is remove barriers to responding to what people want on the high street by providing flexibility. To flip the use of a space no longer requires planning permission. It means spaces that react to what the consumer and community want.
This doesn't mean landlords can go all wild and introduce crazy new uses willy-nilly. Many premises will still require licensing. Flexibility is key if we think about how city and town living has changed over the last 20 years alone.
Not factoring in flexibility is actually where places like the US fall down because while zoning is, in principle, a more productive planning system than the UK's individual building approach, it lacks flexibility resulting in the one-use, segregated communities you see.
And this is a policy which helps both towns AND cities - it's not London-centric. You think about town centres where half the shops are closed and unutilised. Introducing flexibility to flip them can help provide life again, for local entrepreneurs and hipster tastemakers aplenty
The move to making pubs etc. sui generis is also very interesting, but I haven't looked into that, nor the new Class F (education / institution / community use), as much yet. But all in all. Plus some switches will still need development - perhaps installing plant for restaurants
But this cuts a lot of red tape which could be essential in responding quickly in the post-Covid world where more experiential retail will be needed entice e consumers, or where additional office space is needed for social distancing, or simply because we all miss dining out
In short
