Examination of Witnesses

Part of Local Government Finance Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 3:01 pm on 31 January 2017.

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James Lowman:

Alongside that there is a significant incentive to the operator or the property owner. In most cases, that property would be worth more as residential than it would be as a business, although there would be exceptions to that. There has to be a strong and effective planning system and local plans, so that we do not have case by case, site by site conversion from retail to residential. That may have to happen—some high streets may have to get a bit smaller—but it has to be done on a planned basis. It cannot be simply site by site—the lease comes up and it is converted to residential. That way you get very long, incoherent, pockmarked high streets without a clear centre to them. I think it is really important that the planning system mitigates that. As well as the commercial incentive for that to happen sometimes, there may now be—I will leave it to councils to say to what extent that will actually act as an incentive, but I entirely take the point you are making.