Retail & Town Centres

McLoughlin Planning has been successful in securing planning permission with listed building consent and advertisement consent for alterations to a prominent shopfront on Cheltenham’s Promenade.

112 to 118 The Promenade is a prominent retail unit in Cheltenham’s Town Centre.

McLoughlin Planning was appointed by Roundhouse Design to secure the necessary planning permission, listed building and advertisements consents to allow them to renovate the property and make key changes to it, breathing new life into this vacant retail unit, allowing it to become a kitchen showroom.

The building is Grade II Listed and is situated in a prominent location Cheltenham’s Central Conservation Area. Its current configuration was poorly suited for the client’s needs. McLoughlin Planning successfully achieved the necessary consents to allow the property to be remodelled, to improve the customer experience. This included undertaking detailed research on the building’s history showing that it has been consistently renovated and remodelled over time.

This development represents the resilience of Cheltenham’s retail sector and highlights the value of having a detailed understanding of a building’s past and demonstrating this to Local Planning Authority, listed buildings can be altered to help facilitate a post-pandemic resurgence to the local economy.

Permission secured for variation of a restrictive retail condition, using the new Class E (of the Use Classes Order).

Historically, retail (Use Class A) development was heavily regulated in terms of where it could be sited, relative to the City Centre and associated district centres.

Outside of such locations, planning conditions have been frequently imposed to control the sale of goods from such locations, so that they don’t compete with established City and District Centres.

Recent Use Class Order changes and the introduction of Class E has created significant opportunities for retail development to be provided in locations unrestrained by retail planning policy.

This all sounds great except it leaves commercial landlords holding retail property in a difficult position. Many are limited by legacy conditions from a different time in planning which reduces the attractiveness of their properties, especially when faced with the freedom offered by Class E.

We have been successful in helping one such landlord out.

McLoughlin Planning has secured planning permission for the variation of a retail condition on a 2000 sq.ft. retail unit on the edge of the City Centre.

The unit benefitted from planning permission for retail uses, although with a restrictive policy that determined what goods could be sold from the premises. It expressly prevented the sale of food from the unit. This condition still applies despite the recent changes to the Use Classes Order.

In securing a variation of the retail condition to allow for food sales, we reviewed the availability of existing retail and non-retail floorspace in the City to prove that there was no other available locations as well as establishing a reasoned case that Class E allowed for development anywhere in the City.

This allowed a vacant unit to be brought back into a positive retail use. It will re-open as a small foodstore, making best use of an existing edge of centre site, promoting economic activity and avoiding a vacant retail unit becoming a problem.