National Planning Policy Guideline 8: Town Centres and Retailing (NPPG8) and Planning Advice Note 59: Improving Town Centres (PAN59) urge planning authorities to adopt a proactive role towards town centre change and improvement. Working in partnership with retailers, other development interests, private investors, public agencies, infrastructure providers and the community, planning authorities are encouraged to agree an overall strategy for town centres indicating the scope for change, renewal and diversification. Authorities are also urged to undertake systematic health checks, i.e. the collection and analysis of indicators that measure the health of a centre, to monitor changes to its vitality and viability.

To fulfil these requirements, and to equip traditional centres to respond better to changes in shopping patterns and out-of-centre competition, it is intended to produce a series of Centre Action Plans, ultimately one for each centre listed in the City’s hierarchy (policy SC1: The City’s Hierarchy of Centres (schedule SC(i)), except for the City Centre, which is dealt with separately. These will be prepared on a priority basis, in relation particularly to the wider regeneration objectives of this Plan. The Centre Action Plans will be non-statutory in the first instance, but any matters arising from them that require amendment to any of the provisions or policies of this Plan will be incorporated through the review process. They will establish a framework for conducting health checks appropriate to each centre. Proposals for Centre Action Plans are set out in Part 1 - Infrastructure.

The Council, in partnership with other public and private agencies, will seek to safeguard and enhance the vitality and viability of the centres included in the City’s hierarchy, through the encouragement of new development, control of changes of use of development, improvements to the physical environment, traffic management measures, improvements to parking and public transport and measures for centre management and promotion. The vitality and viability of centres will be monitored through systematic health checks.