Planning Policy Statement 4: Planning for Sustainable Economic Growth

Communities and Local Government (CLG) published PPS4 on 29 December 2009. The document is accompanied by a Practice Guide - Planning For Town Centres, prepared by GVA Grimley on behalf of CLG.

PPS4 brings together all of the Government's key planning policies relating to the economy in both urban and rural areas into one single PPS. It replaces PPG4: Industrial and Commercial Development and Small Firms; PPG5: Simplified Planning Zones (which will be re-published as practice guidance); PPS6: Planning for Town Centres; the economic development policies in PPS7: Sustainable development in rural areas and car parking standard policies in PPG13: Transport.

In addition to the widely expected abolition of the needs test, the Government has taken the opportunity to emphasise its support for sustainable economic growth and the need for LPAs to take a positive approach to identifying sites, and determining applications. However, it also sends an unambiguous message that applications which fail to adopt a sequential approach, or which would have a 'significant' impact, should be refused.

This reinforces the need for the long awaited Planning for Town Centres Practice Guide which is intended to help practitioners to interpret the policies of PPS4, and to guide LPAs, applicants and other stakeholders through the process of preparing effective town centre strategies and preparing sequential site and impact assessments.

To view GVA Grimley's summary of the main changes and implications of PPS4 and the Good Practice Guidance for retail and town centres, and links through to the appropriate documentation click below.

For further information on this or any other planning issue, please contact one of the team below or your usual GVA Grimley contact: