Alongside the proposed changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (‘NPPF’), town centres have continued to hit the headlines in recent months in relation to other Government initiatives including Pride of Place and High Street Rental Auctions. Part of the background to these announcements has seemingly been led by a view in Westminster that the health of a local area’s town centres is either a vote winner or a vote loser.
As a consequence, there are a number of subtle but important changes proposed for the NPPF which will affect the future development strategy for town centres.
There are, of course, a number of key pillars of national policy for main town centre uses which the Government does not intend to change. These include:
- The need to define a hierarchy of town centres, and promote their vitality and viability.
- Plan for ‘main town centre land use’ needs.
- The ‘town centres first’ approach via the sequential test.
- A requirement to assess the impact of some retail and leisure proposals located outside town centres.
For further commentary on these aspects, please see my article for LinkedIn in January 2026: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7413685302902534145/.
For town centres, the draft NPPF is not filled with a series of neon-lit headline-grabbing changes. Instead, the proposed re-draft of plan-making and decision-taking policies subtly lay the groundwork for: (a) how town centre policies should be constructed; and (b) decisions should be taken on town centre development projects.
How to Plan for Town Centres
Policy TC1 is proposed to be a replacement for paragraph 90 of the current NPPF. Straight away, TC1(1)(a) talks about development plans having ‘a strategy for town centres’ and that a central theme for plan-making in town centres is for their ‘long term vitality and viability’* . When writing policies, gathering evidence, formulating strategy, and allocating development sites, these two phrases should be at the heart of all that we do. The Government has now made that abundantly clear.
There is, of course, nothing to stop a local authority preparing town centre strategies now, under the current NPPF. However, this town centre strategy requirement is now proposed to be front and centre of national plan-making policy for town centres.
Does this mean that simply having a set of generic policies which deal with the ‘town centre’ hierarchy and policies for proposals within and outside of ‘town centres’ is simply not good enough in a new development plan prepared under the new NPPF? It would certainly appear to be the case, when the proposed new Policy TC2 gives us a clear national development management policy whose aim is to support the vitality and viability of town centres.
So, why are these changes important and how should they be used going-forwards?
Well, it comes as no surprise that many town centres are changing, including the land uses which have traditionally been central to their health. The new NPPF gives local authorities, land owners and landlords the opportunity to fully recognise this and plan properly for this change. There is encouragement for local authorities to use design guides, masterplans and design codes to support their vision for town centres. This encouragement, in TC1(2), will no doubt have a relationship with the requirement for town centre strategies in TC1(1)(a).
Masterplans are important but they should be backed up by clear evidence of change and robust forecasts of how town centres should change to meet both their traditional shopper/visitor base and also to meet their growing residential communities. The latter is important in light of the continuing push to build 1.5 million new homes and the several references to housing in the ‘town centres’ section of the NPPF. Sadly, masterplans which pay no attention to evidence, forecasts for change, the principles of implementation and the effects of development will not stand up to scrutiny.
The advent of the new NPPF policies should therefore give encouragement for local authorities, land owners and landlords to consider significant change in, and a new vision for, town centres. This may include the significant change for the future of some older shopping centres which become difficult to let and have fallen out of favour, but occupy significant amounts of land and provide the potential for redevelopment.
Decision-Taking in Town Centres
Whilst many will say that supporting town centres has been an obvious part of national policy for many years, there is now proposed to be a specific stand-alone national policy: TC2. It is directed specifically at proposals located within town centres, with the singular aim of supporting the overall vitality and viability of the centre. It is a clear statement of intent from the Government and is a type of policy which has previously been missing from national policy.
Importantly, Policy TC2 requires the decision maker to give substantial weight to the benefits of supporting the overall vitality and viability of town centres. There is also specific emphasis on a diversity of uses in the proposed policy, but no specific mention of ‘traditional’ town centre land uses, such as retail, leisure and service uses, although residential uses do get a mention.
The inclusion of this development management policy relieves local authorities of the need for similar policies and instead gives them the opportunity to concentrate upon locally-specific bespoke policies which build upon the work undertaken in the context of Policy TC1.
For more information on how Nexus helps private and public sector clients on all aspects of retail, leisure and town centre development, visit https://www.nexusplanning.co.uk/retail-and-leisure or get in touch with Matt Morris directly.
*Not only is the phrase ‘long term vitality and viability of town centres’ used in the proposed new Policy TC1, but it is also used in the introductory text at the start of Chapter 8 of the new NPPF. This has to be seen as a clear statement of the Government’s intent for the role of town centres in our communities.
