On 18 Sep 2018 at 7:34pm the local wrote:
What are the local Planning Departments priorities regarding retail outlets in the town. I believe it is for Restaurants, other types of outlets are not welcomed. This is what is killing the town. Oh yes they have approved the new pair shop on Station Street as they know it won't last 18 months. Please please can we stop this obsession that LDC has with Restuarants.
On 18 Sep 2018 at 7:54pm pair shop wrote:
What's a pair shop?
On 18 Sep 2018 at 8:02pm Shopper wrote:
It’s got very little to do with planning priorities. Businesses will only ask for change of use from retail to food if they think it will make a viable business. Go to any town and you’ll see the same change which has been slowly creeping along since supermarkets took off and has continued since internet shopping became a thing.
On 18 Sep 2018 at 8:18pm Hell is two miles north wrote:
The mark up on food is massive especially with the buying power chains have. Lewes commercial rents are extortionate. Put 2 and 2 together and you may see things clearly …
On 18 Sep 2018 at 8:38pm ThomasJeromeNewton wrote:
If not restaurants, what?
Retail is dying. From Poundland to John Lewis, they are either going bust or struggling because everyone (or at least, most people) pretends to want shops, but they spend their money online
So shops won’t fill the space. Restaurants are at least social spaces which make for vibrant centres
On 18 Sep 2018 at 9:36pm Robotic wrote:
The world has gone virtual viral and on-line. If you do not physically need to be be there, i.e. Eating, Hairdressers, Nail, Massage etc People are getting it on line. It's the fucha !!
On 18 Sep 2018 at 11:05pm mutterful wrote:
Planners can make all the policies they want to encourage retailers, but in the end, the planning process is reactive and if retailers don't make applications then planners (and elected councillors) need to decide whether a restaurant or coffee shop is preferable to an empty, boarded up shop unit.
Retail as we know it is on its arse. Some of it may be down to greedy landlords and high business rates but lots of it is down to us, who shop on our phones and not in the High Street.
On 19 Sep 2018 at 7:15am MisterD wrote:
The council planning people seem determined to make this town Reading: turning it into a bland, chain-filled commuter town. You won't like the results - no-one in Reading wants to be in Reading.
On 19 Sep 2018 at 7:17am Apple wrote:
But what is a pair shop?! Oh yes they have approved it, appairently. Everything i don't like is the fault of things i don't understand.
On 19 Sep 2018 at 7:43am Xplorer2 wrote:
MisterD, our planning process is based on presumed consent: the planning authority has to have a legitimate, statutory, reason to object, not to consent.
On 19 Sep 2018 at 7:55am Flummoxed wrote:
Yes, but regardless, what is a ' pair ' shop ?
On 19 Sep 2018 at 9:22am Dulux wrote:
PAINT ffs !
On 19 Sep 2018 at 9:26am I need a new pair wrote:
I can't grow them
On 19 Sep 2018 at 10:57am Apple + appair wrote:
You don't understand spelling.
On 19 Sep 2018 at 11:03am Paintful wrote:
Oh yes, they have approved it!
No planning permission needed for a paint shop there.
Council not to blame.
It's the economy, stupid.
On 19 Sep 2018 at 3:40pm Andy wrote:
So Lewes (along with most of the developed world) has a housing crisis, the internet is cutting out 'the middlemen' (retail shops), piles of stock that would otherwise be kept in shops are more efficiently kept in huge automated warehouses.
Planning policy needs to catch up by encouraging shops to convert into residential, thereby helping the housing crisis one shop at a time.
So I'd like to see Lewes have about half or a quarter of the shops currently - high streets might feel different but the world has changed. We don't need so many shops!
On 19 Sep 2018 at 4:05pm xplorer2 wrote:
Andy, HMG did exactly that. Eric Pickles - as I recall - amended legislation to facilitate conversion to residential some years back.
On 19 Sep 2018 at 4:19pm December 2013 wrote:
it was.
On 19 Sep 2018 at 5:28pm Annette Curtin-Twitcher wrote:
At the west end of the High Street/Western Road, quite a few properties have been converted to residential, including a fabulous shoe shop in the bottleneck, which I still miss.
On 19 Sep 2018 at 6:10pm planning inspector wrote:
yes. planning allowed for conversion from commercial to residential and vice versa. problem is once commercial becomes housing there is very little chance of it going back to commercial regardless of the future need.
much the same as brexit, Scottish independence.....