Planning Guidance and Large-Store Development in the United Kingdom: The Search for ‘Flexibility’

Cliff Guy and David Bennison
Additional contact information
Cliff Guy: School of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3WA, Wales
David Bennison: Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, Aytoun Building, Aytoun Street, Manchester M1 3GH, England

Environment and Planning A, 2007, vol. 39, issue 4, 945-964

Abstract: An important feature of town-planning practice in Western Europe has been the attempt to control commercial-property development in order to conform with planning principles. The growth history of large stores such as hypermarkets, superstores, and retail warehouses has thus been characterised by disputes between developers and planners. In this paper we examine the responses of large-store developers to UK government planning guidance that retail developments should be of a nature and scale suited to the physical environment of town centres. This goes against some retailers' preferences for large formats which are generally unsuited to town centres. We explain these two opposed views, devoting particular attention to the retail developers' case. We then use findings from two interview surveys with selected retailers to explore how far retail developers are prepared to go in compromising their preferred models of store development in line with government policy. Finally we discuss potential effects of recent changes in government policy.

Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a38124 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envira:v:39:y:2007:i:4:p:945-964

DOI: 10.1068/a38124

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environment and Planning A
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().