Issue - meetings

To consider the attached report AMED-005-2018/19 and presentation by Lichfields.

The Chairman introduced Mr Peter Wilks, Senior Director of Lichfields who gave a presentation of an impact study that they had produced regarding The Broadway, Debden.

P Wilks advised that Lichfields were commissioned to look into the impacts of the Epping Forest Shopping Park (EFSP) which was opened in December 2017, specifically looking back at how that application was determined in 2012. An impact assessment was prepared at that time which predicted the trade diversion and reduction in trade resulting from the shopping park. This had been established in the Council’s own town centre study in May 2010 which had been based on:

·        Visitor and household surveys;

·        Land use survey; and

·        Town centre health checks.

The historical evidence provided an opportunity to do a before and after comparison and we have looked at that data to see if there was any evidence of actual levels of impact on The Broadway.

Methodology

In terms of the methodology and looking at the trading performance of centres proved to be very difficult as there had been no national published data since 1971. Therefore, we could only go on what changes had happened with the land use within the centre and how the health check undertaken in October 2018 compared with the same exercise done in 2010. Therefore if the visitor and household surveys were re-run, this would enable us to estimate the turnover and trading performance of the town centre the same way it was estimated back in 2010.

Measure of vitality and viability

The Central Government Planning Guidance set out what the measures of vitality and viability were:

·        Diversity of uses;

·        % of vacant street level property;

·        Commercial property rents/yields;

·        Retailer representation;

·        Pedestrian flows;

·        Accessibility;

·        Perception of safety / occurrence of crime; and

·        State of town centre environmental quality.

Looking at The Broadway it was found to be a relatively small centre servicing local people. There were 55 purpose built Class A units which were easy to access and navigate around. The Javelin Group rank over 3,500 retail destinations in the UK including town centres, malls, retail parks and factory outlet centres. In the Epping Forest district The Broadway was ranked third and compared favourably with other smaller centres in the district.

The number of units had reduced since 2010, this was due to the units in Torrington Drive being empty and derelict as Sainsbury’s wanted to modernise and enlarge their store and utilise the units around the store to expand and become part of their car park. Therefore on balance the number of vacancies have predominantly stayed the same.

The representation in The Broadway in 2009 was largely the same as it was in 2018:

The Broadway have the lowest rents in the district at £235 per sq.m with Loughton being the highest at £700 per sq.m.

Visitor Origin

The visitor and household survey  ...  view the full minutes text for item 22