CONTEXT AND JUSTIFICATION

Developers will require to submit statements of supporting information in respect of planning applications for all significant (see Definition) retail and commercial leisure developments, sufficient to enable the Council to consider the application fully against all the relevant policies of this Plan. Similarly, the supporting information should enable consideration against national guidance, the policies of the Joint Structure Plan, and any other material considerations. Failure to provide adequate supporting information may result in refusal of the application.

All such retail and commercial leisure developments will be subject to the sequential approach (see policies SC 2: The Sequential Approach for Retail and Commercial Leisure Developments and CC/SC 1: The Sequential Approach for Retail, Leisure and Entertainment and Related Development in the City Centre). Retail developments will additionally be subject to policies SC 4: Retail Development, SC 5: Retail Development - Related Matters and/or SC 6: Sales of Goods in Large Retail Stores. Supporting statements will require to address these policies as appropriate.

Details of the information required in relation to any particular proposal should be discussed with officers from Development and Regeneration Services prior to the submission of the application, and where possible agreement reached on the scope, methodology and data content of the submission. The statement should preferably be submitted at the same time as the application, and post-submission revisions and alterations should be avoided where possible except where agreed through consultation with officers.

CITY PLAN POLICY - THE SEQUENTIAL APPROACH

Any planning application that requires a sequential approach to be undertaken (see policies SC 2, CC/SC 1 and schedules SC(ii), CC/SC(ii)) should be accompanied by a clear statement of the steps taken to comply with this requirement. A comprehensive analysis of all sites in or adjoining centres within the prospective catchment area of the development will require to be provided. It will be the responsibility of the applicant, not the Council, to identify the sites to be considered. Full reasons must be given, if appropriate, as to why a site has been rejected. It will not be sufficient to provide a superficial dismissal of sites as unsuitable or unavailable. In addition, an explanation will be required of the extent to which the proposed development might be modified in scale, design and/or function so as to facilitate location within or adjoining a centre, as advocated in paragraph 13 of National Planning Policy Guideline 8: Town Centres and Retailing (NPPG 8).

CITY PLAN POLICY - RETAIL DEVELOPMENT

The key policy in respect of major retail development proposals is SC 4: Retail Development. Part [A] establishes that certain proposals, as listed in part 1 of schedule SC(iii), accord with the Plan, while part [B] sets a series of criteria whereby proposals not listed in the schedule (or listed in part 2 of the schedule, in the case of applications for the renewal of consent) may be assessed.

Proposals covered by part [A] of policy SC 4, and listed in schedule SC(iii), carry a presumption in their favour, and the submission of detailed supporting information will not normally be required in terms of this policy (except as indicated in the footnotes to the schedule, or unless the development exceeds the stated floorspace limit or departs materially from the description given), although a general statement of the proposal’s scale, type and expected trading characteristics would be useful. It may, however, be necessary to submit more detailed information to satisfy the requirements of national guidance and/or the Joint Structure Plan (see other requirements).

Proposals covered by part [B] (i.e. any application for a retail development of over 1,000m² gross (food) or 2,000m² gross (non-food), not included in part 1 of schedule SC(iii)), should be accompanied by supporting information sufficient to allow the Council to determine whether the relevant criteria are complied with, the level of detail required being dependent on the scale of the proposal. For developments of over 2,500m² gross, this should include fully detailed calculations of retail capacity and impact, relating the proposed development to all other relevant existing facilities and consented proposals. For smaller developments, adequate statistical support will also be required where it appears to the Council that sufficient capacity may not be available to accommodate the proposal, or that significant adverse effects on any centre or centres might result. The Joint Structure Plan Manager proposes to produce guidelines for the provision of such information.

Criterion (f) of policy SC 4, part [B], tests in-and edge-of-centre proposals in terms of scale, type and appropriateness, while criterion (i) tests out-of-centre proposals also in terms of retail capacity. In assessing proposals against these criteria, the Council will have regard to the capacity studies carried out for the Joint Structure Plan and for this Plan (see City Plan Technical Note: Infrastructure: Shopping and Commercial Development). The results of these studies are expressed in terms of broad catchment areas (Joint Structure Plan) and retail analysis areas (this Plan), but applicants may wish to propose alternative catchment area definitions for the analysis of their proposals, provided these can be shown to be appropriate to the development concerned and to have been defined objectively. In the case of smaller-scale proposals (especially non-food) of less than 2,500m² gross, it will often be possible to dispense with much of the usual statistical input, especially where the development would serve a localised catchment with limited existing provision. In these circumstances, a brief statement of the situation within that catchment (including details of relevant existing and consented developments) will often suffice. For major in-or edge-of-centre developments, it should be noted that, although a formal retail capacity assessment is not specifically required under criterion (f), it may be required under the provisions of the Joint Structure Plan (see other requirements).

Criteria (g) and (j) of policy SC 4, part [B] concern impact on existing centres, and here again the level of statistical analysis required will depend on the scale, type and location of the proposal. In all cases, particular account will be taken of cumulative impact, whereby the aggregate effects on any centre of the proposed development, plus all other developments opened or consented during the previous five years within or affecting the relevant catchment, will be considered. In assessing proposals, no specific cut-off impact figure will be used, but the degree of impact will be considered in relation to the health and vulnerability of the particular centre(s) concerned.

All other criteria of policy SC 4 will require to be comprehensively addressed, and any departure from them fully justified. This also applies to all aspects of policies SC 5 and SC 6 that may be relevant to the particular proposal.

OTHER REQUIREMENTS

As stated above, relevant planning applications should be accompanied by a statement of supporting information sufficient to meet the requirements of national guidance and the Joint Structure Plan.

In respect of NPPG 8, the proposal’s conformity with the sequential approach must be established. Furthermore, proposals that are inconsistent with the Joint Structure Plan and/or with this Plan should be accompanied by a statement that addresses the considerations contained in NPPG 8, paragraph 45 (or its equivalent in any future national guidance).

In respect of the approved Joint Structure Plan, supporting information must satisfy the terms of all relevant policies and schedules, particularly those which are criterion-based. Relevant considerations include strategic policies 1, 6, 9 and 10 and schedules 1(a), 6(c) and 9. In approving the Joint Structure Plan, Scottish Ministers inserted a modification requiring the Joint Committee to hold discussions with the retailing industry on the assessment of retail requirements in the period beyond 2006, with a view to bringing forward a longer-term strategy for town centres and retailing as an Alteration to the Joint Structure Plan before the end of 2003. Any changes to the retailing policies of the Joint Structure Plan resulting from this process will require to be reflected in supporting information. The statement of supporting information may also address other material considerations, either at the discretion of the applicant or at the request of the Council.

Significant Retail Developments: developments with a gross retail (Class 1) floorspace of over 1,000 sq. m., if principally for the sale of food and convenience goods, and over 2,000 sq. m., if principally for the sale of non-food (comparison) products (see text for the level of detail required in relation to scale of development).

Commercial Leisure Developments: schemes such as multi-screen cinemas and bowling alleys, which require to be accessible to a large number of people.