Retail frontage policies and change of use in a parade

Primary shopping frontage policy is the local plan tool that limits how many units in a defined shopping street can be occupied by something other than a shop. It usually sets a percentage, counts either units or frontage length, and applies more strictly in primary frontages than in secondary ones. Since September 2020 much of it has been overtaken by Class E, because moving between a shop, a cafe, an office, a gym or a clinic is no longer development at all.

That leaves a narrower set of cases where the policy still decides the answer, and those are the ones worth understanding.

Primary and secondary frontage designations explained

An adopted local plan or a town centre area action plan defines a town centre boundary, a primary shopping area within it, and within that, primary and sometimes secondary frontages shown on the policies map.

Primary frontages are the prime pitch: the strongest retail stretch, usually the part with the highest footfall. Policy here resists the loss of retail floorspace and looks for continuous active shopfronts. Secondary frontages are the fringe, where a wider mix is accepted and the policy test is softer.

The designation is drawn on the map, not by common sense. A unit two doors outside the primary frontage boundary is assessed under a different policy from its neighbour. Check the policies map for the exact property before you assume anything, and check the plan date, because many frontage policies were written before 2020 and read oddly now.

Percentage of frontage policies and how officers count

A typical policy says something like: permission will not be granted where the proposal would result in more than a stated proportion of units within the frontage being in non-retail use, or where it would create an unbroken run of more than a stated number of non-retail units.

Officers count in one of two ways. Unit counting is simple: how many addresses in the defined frontage, how many currently in each category. Frontage length counting measures the metres of shopfront, which produces a different answer where one large unit sits among small ones. The policy wording tells you which method applies, and if it does not, ask the case officer before you submit.

Two practical points. The count is taken at the date of determination, so a competing application decided the week before yours can push the frontage over the threshold. And the baseline is often out of date, because councils survey frontages periodically rather than continuously. Doing your own survey, dated and photographed, is worth the afternoon it takes.

What Class E flexibility does and does not remove

The Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987 was amended in 2020 to create Class E, commercial, business and service. It brings together retail, food and drink for consumption on the premises, financial and professional services, indoor sport and fitness, medical and health services, creches and offices, along with light industrial in some circumstances.

Movement within Class E is not development, so no permission is required and no frontage policy applies. A shop becoming a coffee shop, a nail bar or a physiotherapy clinic is outside the planning system entirely, unless an Article 4 direction has removed the right.

What Class E does not cover is the list of sui generis uses that most frontage policies were really aimed at. Hot food takeaways, drinking establishments, betting offices, payday loan shops, casinos, theatres, launderettes, nightclubs and hotels all sit outside Class E and need permission. So do changes to residential use, which is where Class MA prior approval comes in, and where councils apply their frontage policies most firmly.

The result is a policy that increasingly bites on takeaways, pubs and residential conversions rather than on the general mix of shops and services. Where an authority has responded by making an Article 4 direction over its frontages, the older policy comes back into force. Directions of that kind are made under the GPDO 2015 and follow the same publicity and confirmation process described for Article 4 directions on shopfronts and commercial frontages.

Vacancy evidence and marketing periods

Where the policy resists loss of a retail unit, the standard route to consent is evidence that the unit cannot be let for its current use. Councils set out what they will accept, usually in a supplementary planning document.

The elements are consistent between authorities:

1. A marketing period, commonly 12 months, occasionally six on smaller parades.
2. Marketing through a commercial agent with a board on site, an online listing and a record of enquiries.
3. Terms at or below the level supported by local comparable evidence, with rent, lease length and incentives stated.
4. A schedule of enquiries received, viewings held and why each fell away.
5. A valuer's opinion on the letting prospects of the unit in its current configuration.

The most common failure is marketing at an aspirational rent. An officer who can see the asking price sat 30 per cent above comparable lettings will conclude the unit was never really on the market. The second most common failure is a marketing period that started before the unit was in a lettable state.

Where the case is about a change to residential, the reasoning councils apply to those decisions is set out in the note on prior approval refusals under Class MA, and frontage policy often reappears there as a local consideration.

Active frontage, shutters and shopfront design

Frontage policies usually run alongside a design requirement for active ground floor uses: clear glazing, a visible interior, an entrance onto the street and no blanked-out or vinyl-covered windows.

External solid roller shutters materially affect the external appearance of a building, so they need planning permission. Councils generally refuse them and accept open lattice or internal shutters instead, on the basis that a solid shutter creates a dead frontage and attracts graffiti. In a conservation area, expect that position to be firm.

Where a use needs privacy, such as a clinic or a treatment room, the workable answer is manifestation or partial screening to the lower part of the window with clear glazing above, rather than an opaque frontage. Put the reasoning and a shopfront elevation in the application, because a bare change of use application with no shopfront detail invites a condition you would rather negotiate now.

Preparing a short statement for a frontage application

For a single unit the submission does not need to be long. It needs to be specific.

Set out the address, the frontage designation from the policies map with the policy reference, and the lawful use with the evidence for it. Give your own frontage survey, dated, with a plan showing each unit and its current use. State the count under the policy method and where the proposal leaves it. Deal with vacancy and marketing evidence if the policy requires it. Cover shopfront treatment, hours, servicing and, where the use generates cooking odours or plant noise, the technical evidence to go with it.

A planning statement is the right home for that argument on most small applications, and for a hot food use it will need to be read alongside a ventilation and extraction assessment and a noise assessment. Where the proposal is a larger retail scheme, the retail impact assessment and the retail sequential test come into play at the thresholds set in national policy or the adopted local plan.

Draft the statement, then have it reviewed before it goes in.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval. This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.