Planning Policy EM 67 stifling growth in Cheltenham

• Posted by David Jones on 14th Dec ’06 at 14:37 GMT
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Cheltenham Borough Local plan policy EM67 seeks to restrict the conversion of business premises to non-business uses (such as housing).

The policy was included in the Cheltenham Borough local Plan second review which was adopted in June 2006. The policy was first imposed in an attempt to meet the County Councils employment land supply requirement for Cheltenham of some 12 hectares.

What the Council has failed to grasp is that employers on the whole require modern factories and offices, rather than run down back street factories and unsuitable office space lacking basic facilities.

Evans Jones Planning have successfully overturned a number of planning refusals for conversion of redundant factories and offices to housing, in so doing creating a viable long term use for otherwise stagnant land and buildings.

Within the Cheltenham urban area there are many thousands of square feet of office and factory space laying vacant and underused because of the local authority's failure to designate land for new employment uses.

Businesses seeking to relocate to Gloucestershire tend to gravitate towards those areas which have allocated appropriate land for new business uses such as Tewkesbury, Gloucester and Stroud and thus Cheltenham is falling behind as a centre for business.