FAQs: Town Centre Uses
Through the development around OPDC, there will be a creation of a new High Street. Read the answers to the questions we've been asked.
Through our Local Plan we are requiring planning applications to include retail visions setting out what sort of shops they are proposing the retail spaces to be targeted to and type of retailers they are hoping to attract to the area.
In addition, OPDC will require that 10% of units are small units of 80sqm or less, to incentivise the establishment of new independent retailers in the area.
OPDC is looking at best practice across London on this. There are some examples of recent schemes where developers have put in graduated rents for the first few years, which start low and rise over time and this approach has worked well to support independents.
The draft Local Plan environment chapter, sets out an 'agent of change' approach where the new use needs to mitigate its impact on the existing use. For example, this would mean that a new cultural facility would need to mitigate its impact against existing residents, but if after the cultural facility was built, there was a proposal for new housing next to it, the onus would be on the housing to provide appropriate mitigation.
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