Agenda item

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 supporting planning policy.
• The Design Guidance before the Committee had been produced by the Beckenham Town Team at the request of a previous Planning Conservation Officer and reflected that Beckenham was a Conservation Area.
• The Beckenham Shop Front Design Guidance could be used to inform the production of Boroughwide guidance which had been in the developmental stages since 2014.
• There had been at least four instances where shop fronts in Beckenham had been radically altered without consent and this issue needed to be addressed along with other long standing planning issues.
• In Beckenham there was a strong Town Centre Team and the Beckenham Society.The professionals involved in these groups had worked together to produce guidance which could be heavily relied upon to inform the Boroughwide guidance.  After three years’ work, the guidance had been finalised and was before the Committee.
• The local Ward Councillors were asking the Committee to vote in favour of the alternative recommendation which incorporated the Officer recommendation.

In opening the discussion, the Chairman asked for confirmation of the timescales to transition the guidance before the Committee into working document were the Committee minded to approve. In response, the Head of Planning Policy and Strategy explained that his service was delivering a number of other workstreams, including the Boroughwide guidance, and the draft guidance would therefore come forward after those. Officers were unable to commit to reprioritising other work at this time.

In response to a question about an exact date when the borough wide guidance would come forward, the Head of Planning Policy and Strategy noted that the intention was to present the draft Boroughwide Design Guide to the Development Control Committee in March 2022. It would then need to go through the Renewal, Recreation and Housing PDS Committee and on to the Executive, ahead of public consultation

Members welcomed the excellent Beckenham High Street Shop Fronts Design Guide which they considered had been compiled by representatives of Beckenham and clearly set out expectations in terms of shop front design.  Concerns were expressed that the Boroughwide Design guide had been in development for seven years.  It was agreed that it was now time to progress the Boroughwide Design Guide and that the Beckenham Design Guide should be heavily relied upon in its production. In the meantime, it was suggested that the Beckenham Shop Front Design Guide should be adopted at the earliest opportunity.

In response to a question, the Head of Planning Policy and Strategy confirmed that neither the Chislehurst Design Guide nor the Bromley North Design Guide carried any weight in planning decisions as they were not formally adopted documents.  In order for the Beckenham Design Guide to have more weight in term of defending planning appeals, a more formal statutory process would need to be followed involving public consultation.

Councillor Bear proposed acceptance of the Officer proposal that the Beckenham Design Guide be incorporated into the Boroughwide Design Guide for March 2022.  In the interim, the Design Guide for Shop Fronts in Beckenham be informally approved and published on the Council website immediately.

The motion was seconded by Cllr William Huntington-Thresher, put to the vote and CARRIED unanimously.

In response to a question, the Head of Planning Policy and Strategy confirmed that neither the Design Guide for Chislehurst nor the Design Guide for Bromley North were formal documents and were therefore not published on the Council’s website, although the Chislehurst Design Guide was available within the Development Control Committee papers in 2014.

Members expressed dismay that the Guides were not available on the website as they were frequently used by local Ward Councillors and local groups to inform planning applications. The Committee instructed Officers that the status of the Chislehurst and Bromley North Design Guides be established and that Officers develop a form of words to enable all the informal guides to be published on the Council’s website as soon as possible to make the guides readily available to local residents. There would need to be a caveat that these documents were not formal policy but were there for assistance and guidance. 

Cllr Samaris Huntington-Thresher proposed that Officers be instructed to investigate the status of the Chislehurst and Bromley North Design Guides and report back to the next ordinary meeting of the Committee.

The motion was seconded by Cllr Terry, put to the vote and CARRIED.

RESOLVED THAT:

1. The Officer proposal that the Beckenham Design Guide be incorporated into the Boroughwide Design Guide for March 2022 be accepted.  In the interim, the Design Guide for Shop Fronts in Beckenham be informally approved and published on the Council website immediately.

2. Officers be instructed to investigate the status of the Chislehurst and Bromley North Design Guides and report back to the next ordinary meeting of the Committee. The Bromley North and Chislehurst design guides are also published on the Council website as informal documents pending their incorporation into the design guide as well.