This section is updated monthly.

Shop, horror - same old story...

Andy Yuille, CPRE NW Regional Policy Officer. March 2009

On the edge of Lancaster city centre lies the ‘Canal Corridor North’ site. This is made up of a large, often under-used car park, some derelict and under-used buildings, and some small businesses. It is a prime brownfield site, an area ripe for redevelopment. No-one who lives in or visits Lancaster who knows this area would disagree.

But the proposal put forward for this site is recession-busting retail on a grand scale. It would increase the amount of retail floorspace in Lancaster by about 60%. Which is an awful lot more shops!

Could Lancaster do with a better shopping ‘offer’? Yes, it probably could. But on this scale? Surely not - because the residents of Lancaster and the surrounding areas just aren't going to suddenly have an extra 60% of disposable income to spend in them! In fact we're already into the biggest recession the UK has seen for over 30 years, so the amount of money available for retail therapy is significantly reduced – by any recognised economic parameters that can be applied.

The likely result will be the closure of existing locally- and family-owned shops and stalls in the city centre, and their replacement on the edge of the centre with clone-town chain stores which are more able to ride out the loss or reduction in profits. But even the big chains need customers to survive. And Lancaster frankly doesn't have anywhere near enough. So they're going to have to come from elsewhere - and the planned 800 space car-park gives a good idea how they're expected to arrive.

Lancaster's one-way system is already stressed for periods of the day. But, according to the highway authority’s own traffic modelling, the planned new M6-Heysham Link Bypass (a quite separate scheme) will remove just 4% of traffic from the main route that rings the town centre. The influx of cars needed to feed this new consumer behemoth will choke the city to a standstill, making the already poor air quality even worse.

The developers, Centros, and the planning authority, Lancaster City Council, actually claim that this development will be good news in transport terms. It will, they say, prevent people from driving to Manchester or Preston to shop. But the increase in shopping that would need to be done in Lancaster to make the new development viable is far higher than the ‘leakage’ of shoppers to these other cities. And Lancaster will never rival Manchester in terms of its shopping ‘offer’ - or its cultural offer, which many people who travel to Manchester to shop take advantage of at the same time.

So - people will still go to Manchester, to shop and visit galleries, museums, theatres, restaurants etc at the same time. Which means the only way the new shopping centre can survive is to get a lot more people to drive into Lancaster a lot more than they do at the moment, to spend a lot more money that they just don't have. More car trips generated, very few prevented.

The whole proposal is based on a 1980s and 90s fantasy of unlimited personal debt and a 1960s and 70s fantasy of unlimited car use leading to freedom and happiness. And it's just one of many similar examples all over the North West region. The world has changed a lot in the last half century, but the economic development plans of the people with the money, who could make a real difference for the good in our communities, are stuck just where they were.

And this is all without starting to think about what many consider to be the most objectionable aspect of this proposal - that it won't just take in the under-utilised land, but will destroy four conservation areas by demolishing a host of historic buildings, imposing a wholly alien building and road layout on one of the North West's finest historic cities and, in the words of English Heritage, the Government's advisor on the historic environment, "irreversibly damage" Lancaster's historic character. But what is 2,000 years of heritage when there might be a quick buck to be made? The fact of the matter is that a scheme whose success requires increasing levels of consumer debt and increasing numbers of car journeys just is not sustainable.

This isn't just about the Centros proposal. It isn't just about Lancaster. It's about the way development and investment is done in this country. We have many fine words in policies, nationally, regionally and locally. Many of us have spent years fighting to make those policies better, more sustainable. Indeed we're reckoned to have some of the most progressive transport policies in Europe. But unless those policies are implemented properly, unless councils and others stand up to the big developers who put forward shoddy schemes in inappropriate places and actually turn the words of those policies into actions on the ground, unless we start putting our money where our mouth is, we'll get more rubbish like this coming forwards, because the companies behind it know they can get away with it.

We need fewer car journeys, more sustainable patterns of economic and other activity, and to protect our natural and built environments. We know how to do this. It makes sense - socially, environmentally, and in all but maybe the very short term, economically as well. So why do so many of the people with money and power seem to be stuck in the past?

Post script

(added 20th March 2009)

The same old story has developed an interesting twist as of mid March! The Government has just ‘called-in’ this proposal so that it can be examined by a Planning Inspector at a Public Inquiry, to see if it really is the best option for the city and that it really does comply with Government policy.

This is not unusual, particularly not for a scheme of this size or one that is this controversial. But what is unusual is that Centros have decided not to defend it. They must recognise that it is not economically viable, that it conflicts with Government policy, and that it is not worth their while fighting to push through something that just is not right for the town, particularly in this economic climate.

What is really unusual is that Lancaster City Council wants to fight the inquiry anyway! This is pretty much unprecedented, and shows a reckless disregard for the people who elected them. If the developer does not think it is worth spending money defending their unsustainable proposal, how can the council justify spending £50,000 of council tax just on barrister’s fees?

The council say they are going ahead because they need to be certain that the principles behind the approach are right. However, public inquiries are very specifically intended to test particular planning applications, not principles or general approaches. The council does need to test the principle of whether major retail development on this scale is the best use of that site. And the way to do that would be through rigorous investigation of a range of options, including genuine public consultation and participation. Let’s hope the same old story continues to twist, and throws up some genuine democratic participation in planning – and maybe even a sustainable solution!