DEVELOPMENT & PLACE

The future layout of UK towns and cities will be largely determined by the country’s planning system. Ian Anderson , who leads Cushman &Wakefield’s UK planning and consultancy team, tells us why individual locations need to find their own USP, explains how planning and politics are inextricably linked and reveals his favourite European get-away city. What do you perceive to be the biggest issue currently facing mixed use development in UK town and city centres? The accelerating pace of the structural metamorphosis of town centres and need to respond quickly and decisively is sadly too often paired with an inertia in retrospective-looking planning policies and local politics, which seek a ‘preservation in aspic’ primarily for retail uses only. And what do you suggest is the best way of responding to that? Many towns are presently caught in a middle ground between key cities and more convenience-led destinations. They need to find and identify with their own USP, be it a revival of a market (see Markets feature, p.14), a focus on an attractive public realm or a causal link with their hinterland or history which can be celebrated, developed and ultimately, attract people. Presumably that requires a change in local attitudes? Most definitely; planners and politicians have to accept that some centres need to be re-imagined as mixed-use Ian Anderson Partner, Cushman &Wakefield INTERVIEW WHAT'S NEXT? communities, with a change in function where retail uses are no longer the raison d’être to visit a centre, but part of a wider visit or experience. That sounds easier said than done… It’s tricky, but not impossible. Planning is a political, as well as a technical, process. Producing an amazing regeneration strategy is just the start. To succeed it’s important to bring the decision makers along on the journey and move them away frommeasuring the success of their High Street by the number of shops they have. The revised NPPF (National Planning Policy Framework) was published in summer 2018. What is your take on how this latest incarnation will help or hinder those involved in urban regeneration? The newNPPF is unashamedly residential-led with only cursory mention of strategies to enable future town centre growth. For a document seeking to predict the next 10 years, including our exit from the European Union, the NPPF doesn’t address the futureproofing or flexibility required by the predicted structural changes in how we shop and work. Planning is a political, as well as a technical, process. Producing an amazing regeneration strategy is just the start. 18 19 CUSHMAN & WAKEFIELD DEVELOPMENT & PLACE