Tag: shopping

Guidance Updates for Design and Shopping and Leisure in the City Centre

We’ve recently updated two important planning guidance documents to better shape development in the city, for design and for land use in the city centre. These guidance documents are used by applicants when designing and submitting applications, and by planners when assessing these applications. They are good examples of the sources we use to judge proposals that come to us and to make clear what we expect of new development.

The main changes to the guidance are covered below, with a link to the documents.

 

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Princes Street – The main core of the city centre shopping and leisure area, as shown on the cover of the supplementary guidance.

City Centre Shopping and Leisure Supplementary Guidance Changes

The Council prepares planning guidance for the City Centre under the Planning (Scotland) Act. The guidance is a statutory requirement of our Local Development Plan policy on shops to guide how and where shops and non-shop uses in town centres including the city centre are allowed.

This guidance sets out the change of use policies that apply to the city centre retail core, the boundary of which can be seen on the LDP proposals map and sets out where a planning application for a change of use from a shop to a non-shop use will be supported.

Since the guidance was first written there have been changes that are likely to have an impact on the city centre such as; wider changes to shopping trends, the publication of our City Centre Transformation strategy, the publication of a retail and leisure study, the future opening of the new Edinburgh St James and many changes of use in the centre. The key changes respond to these and cover:

  • Altering existing guidance covering Princes Street to provide significantly more flexibility for non-shop uses.
  • Creating new guidance for Castle Street, Frederick Street and Hanover Street which is much more flexible than the other named streets.
  • Altering the existing guidance covering the frontages of the other named streets in the retail core to be more flexible.
  • Altering the existing guidance covering parts of the city centre retail core outside of these streets by determining changes of use based on whole streets rather than units in a row.

The guidance was written with the involvement of people working in retail in Edinburgh through workshops and was opened to public consultation before being approved by the Planning Committee on 29 January 2020. You can view the updated guidance here.

 

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Leith Fort – recently completed housing included as a model of good design in the Edinburgh Design Guidance.

Edinburgh Design Guidance Changes

The non-statutory Edinburgh Design Guidance sets out the Council’s expectations for the design of new development in Edinburgh. It seeks to raise standards of design in the city by providing guidance on how to respond to specific design issues, from analysing a site, to masterplanning, building design, materials and streets and public spaces. The changes to the Edinburgh design Guidance were also approved at Planning Committee on 29 January 2020.

Following a workshop with elected members and working with our planning colleagues, a number of changes were identified to clarify and update the guidance. The key changes are:

  • A methodology for calculating density to ensure a consistent approach across the city to calculating built density. (p38)
  • Approved council guidance on public art is now included in the Edinburgh Design Guidance document. (p48)
  • Revisions to the parking standards to make their use easier and highlight where it is appropriate to differ from these standards. (p79)
  • Clarification of daylighting and key view assessment processes. (p99)
  • Guidance on designing for people with disabilities (p108) and on single aspect dwellings. (p110)

You can view a copy of the updated guidance here.

City Plan 2030 – Shopping and Leisure Seminar

On 22 February 2019 we held a shopping and leisure seminar with people who work in this sector as well as people from community councils. The seminar was a chance to share findings from our research into the shopping and leisure market in Edinburgh. As with the seminars we held on housing and visitor accommodation, these events help us gather a range of views to help shape our policies for City Plan 2030.

The event included an open discussion with a number of issues and queries raised.

The speakers included Cllr Neil Gardiner, Convener of the Planning Commitee, who welcomed the attendees to the seminar:

 

Daisy Narayanan (Project Director, the City of Edinburgh Council) who talked about the progress of the Edinburgh City Centre Transformation project:

 

Keith Miller (Senior Planner, the City of Edinburgh Council) who shared the context and timing of City Plan 2030, and our research and monitoring done on the subject of the shopping and leisure market in the city;

 

and Dr Mark Robertson (Ryden) who covered the draft retail and leisure commercial needs study which was commissioned by us to inform our retail policies for City Plan 2030;

 

Part of the draft study can be seen below, including some detailed findings on the number of shops, rent and vacant units in our town centres. You may not know that Portobello town centre has the lowest rent costs but also the lowest rate of vacancy in the city, and that Leith/Leith Walk has the most shops of all centres:

vacancyslide

rentunitsslide

 

The city centre has been rated highly in surveys which were done as part of this study:

satisfactionslide

 

And access to shops outside of centres was covered, with this map showing parts of the city which are within walking distance of a food or local grocery shop:

AccessToShops_with centres map.jpg

 

The Ryden study includes a lot of data, but a few key points include;

  • Vacancy levels have fallen since the recession, and are below the Scottish average.
  • Although not the biggest shopping and leisure market, Edinburgh city centre ranks highly on quality. Edinburgh St James will continue to shift the market to the east of the city.
  • The reduction in comparison goods shops has been offset by higher numbers of leisure and service uses, although spending on comparison goods (which shoppers buy less often, and will compare prices, features and quality between products and shops before buying) is forecast to grow up to 2028.
  • There is enough convenience shopping space to allow for the expected growth of the city up to 2028.

These are all trends we will need to address as we continue to shape our policies. This is only part of the research that is going into City Plan 2030, and as the plan moves forward we will be getting more views and consulting on what the plan should include. You can keep track and take part by:

City Plan 2030 – Shopping and Leisure

We are continuing our series of topic stakeholder events, where we discuss a key topic to be addressed by City Plan 2030 (such as housing or visitor accommodation) and invite people who work in these areas and are a way of sharing and gaining knowledge in these topics, with our next event on the shopping and leisure sector in Edinburgh. At this seminar we would like to share early findings of our market research in this sector.

This includes the work we already do to keep track of retail floorspace, empty units and types of shops. For example, we conduct a survey of all shop units in the city to look at the health of the retail sector and see how our shopping policies are working.

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All shops are surveyed every five years while the city centre and our 8 town centres are surveyed once a year.

In recent years, there has been a decrease in the number of ‘comparison goods’ shops (where shoppers buy from less often, and will compare prices, features and quality between products and shops before buying) and at the same time an increase in non-retail uses such as hair salons, cafes and restaurants.

The number of vacant units has fallen in recent years, across the city and in most of our town centres. The supplementary guidance we use to set out where and how other uses, such as food and drink, are to be allowed in our centres plays a key role in this by encouraging other uses in the right places to reduce the number of empty units as the shopping and leisure market changes.

We also review our guidance when needed and ask for your views on what kind of uses we should allow and where.

Watch this space for more on our shopping and leisure seminar! In the meantime you can keep track of City Plan 2030 by:

Shops in Edinburgh’s town centres

Did you know that Edinburgh has eight town centres? These are Brunstfield/Morningside, Corstorphine, Gorgie/Dalry, Leith/Leith Walk, Nicolson Street/Clerk Street, Portobello, Stockbridge and Tollcross.

Recently we’ve been asking people about shop uses in their area and what else they would like to see such as cafes, offices or community uses.  As part of this, pupils from Corstorphine Primary and Dalry Primary schools drew what they’d like in their area.  Thanks to the pupils for their great ideas, which you can view below.  

At the moment we are consulting on Corstorphine and Gorgie/Dalry town centres.  We’re holding a a drop-in session on Saturday 10 May 11am to 3pm at Fountainbridge Library if you’d like to speak to us about Gorgie/Dalry or ask us about any of the town centres.

Corstorphine

Gorgie/Dalry

February 2014 Planning Committee

Princes Street

At our meeting on 27 February, the Planning Committee agreed to relax planning policy for Princes Street to allow cafes and restaurants to open up alongside the shops to make it more of a destination.  A more flexible approach to Shandwick Place, Castle Street, and Queensferry Street has also been agreed.  Shopping will always be one of the main reasonsPrinces Street why people want to be in the city centre but by allowing more cafes and restaurants in certain areas it will encourage more people to spend time enjoying the spectacular views and unique atmosphere.  Along with new shops opening, the tram set to run, and large parts of George Street being given to pedestrians, it is an exciting time for our city centre and the recent launch of the ‘This is Edinburgh’ promotional campaign will help increase footfall in the area.

Edinburgh Street Design Guidance

An attractive environment also helps to make a successful place and the Council is committed to providing high quality streets, pavements and public spaces.  The Planning The ShoreCommittee agreed that consultation should soon start on our new Edinburgh Street Design Guidance.  The draft guidance is clear that people should be put before cars when new streets are designed or existing streets are changed. Edinburgh has been at the forefront of street design since the 1990s and it will be interesting to hear your views on our latest proposals.

The Forth Bridge

The Forth Bridgeprogress of the nomination to make The Forth Bridge a world heritage site was also reported to the Committee.  It will not be until the summer of 2015 that we find out if the bid has been successful but it was encouraging to see how far it has already come.

You can read the all the Planning Committee reports in full online.

Councillor Ian Perry.  Convener of the Planning Committee