Issue - meetings

The Beckenham High Street Shop Fronts Design Guide had been submitted to the Council with a view to it being used to assess relevant planning applications in Beckenham Town Centre. The report considered this guide and recommended that it be used to inform the production of the Boroughwide shopfront design guidance in the Council’s forthcoming Bromley Design Guide Supplementary Planning Document (SPD).

A report from the Beckenham Town Centre Team outlining the following amended recommendations from the Copers Cope Ward Members was tabled:

2.   AMENDED RECOMMENDATIONS PROPOSED BY COPERS COPE WARD COUNCILORS

2.1  That the Beckenham High Street Shop Fronts Design Guide be adopted forthwith to assess relevant planning applications in Beckenham Town Centre and be a material consideration in the determination of planning applications, providing strong support for planning decisions where needed.

2.2  That the Beckenham High Street Shop Fronts Design Guide be used by the Council to inform the future production of borough-wide shopfront design guidance in the forthcoming Bromley Design Guide Supplementary Planning Document.

The report is attached at Appendix A to the minutes.

The Head of Planning Policy and Strategy introduced the report and recognised the time and effort that had gone into producing the guidance.  He confirmed that whilst it was agreed that some guidance was useful, Boroughwide guidance was being developed and consequently the view of Officers was that there was not a specific need for location specific guidance. He also noted that the guidance itself was not specific to Beckenham.  The Head of Planning Policy and Strategy recognised that in 2014, the Development Control Committee had noted the Chislehurst Design Guide with the intention of using this guide to inform the production of Boroughwide guidance. The intention was to now use the Beckenham Shop Fronts Design Guide and the Chislehurst Design Guide to inform the Boroughwide Design Guide which would be brought forward in early 2022. The Head of Planning Policy and Strategy set out the statutory process and Council committee process that adopted planning guidance must follow and noted that it would not be possible for the Committee to formally adopt a document without going through this process, which included six weeks’ public consultation. The Head of Planning Policy and Strategy also noted that the Planning Policy and Strategy team are working on a number of other planning documents and that any request to progress a Beckenham-specific guide would not be prioritised above these other documents whose production has been approved by DCC and Executive in the Local Development Scheme which was approved in 2020. The Head of Planning Policy and Strategy considered that once a Bromley Design Guide incorporating shopfront guidance was published, there would be no need for additional documents covering shopfronts in specific areas.

Councillor Michael Tickner addressed the Committee as local Ward Member making the following points:

• The Committee had previously endorsed two Shop Front Design Guides: one for Bromley North and one for Chislehurst. 
• If endorsed, the Shop Front Design Guidance would become a supplementary planning document  ...  view the full minutes text for item 66