BHCC - Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce

The Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce has today signaled its concern that Coalition proposals to deregulate planning laws may seriously threaten city businesses and the jobs they provide.

The Coalition government has been signaling deregulation of planning laws since entering office. One element – the idea that the rules for a change of use from commercial to residential should be relaxed –is of great importance to business and has a particular resonance for Brighton & Hove: the city derives the vast majority of its employment from smaller business – on which its economy rests –and suffers more than most from a lack of small, affordable office and workshop space.

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has now put the proposal out for consultation. This week, Brighton & Hove City Council has approached the Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce, among other business forums, to represent business opinion to the DCLG: the Chamber is now seeking to consult businesses widely across the city for their views.

On the face of it, many city dwellers may see the deregulation as a good thing, particularly if they’re concerned about some of the city’s large, abandoned and increasingly derelict commercial buildings. If it’s true that there’s clearly no demand for, say, large office blocks on Davigdor Road, deregulation may make it easier to return such space to sorely-needed residential use. And perhaps relaxed rules might have meant a much earlier, swifter redevelopment of the old TA barracks on Lewes Road.

But the Chamber of Commerce and many of its members are anxious about the lack of smaller space for offices and workshops, particularly near the city centre, and the increasing threats to retail space throughout the city and suburbs.

On the office/workshop front, a number of Chamber consultations and events – not least its council hustings in April – have identified a very real fear that lack of affordable space is inhibiting small businesses’ ability to flourish, grow and create more jobs in the city, and is deterring start-ups and established businesses that would like to move into the city.

On the retail front, the inexorable encroachment of supermarkets and other large multiples already seriously endangers independent retailers and local shopping, to the detriment of neighbourhoods, personal choice and those who find it difficult to get to distant supermarkets.

The Chamber’s fear is that deregulation in this sphere could add another major pressure to oust small businesses and independent shops. At the moment, property owners and developers can frequently turn a quick profit by changing a building or plot of land from commercial to residential use and then throwing up a rapid-build block of flats, and it’s only the present planning regulations that prevent such activity from going on wholesale across the city. Whatever the faults of those regulations – and there are many – they do at least protect the city’s small business infrastructure and allow the council planners to judge what’s best for the whole community, rather than what’s most profitable for an individual landowner or developer.

There’s no doubt that there needs to be some fundamental changes to planning regulations and maybe other aspects of the Coalition’s planning proposals (such as giving local communities greater say in their own neighbourhoods) are highly beneficial but the Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce urges all businesses to think seriously about the effects of this particular piece of deregulation and to make their views known.

Julia Chanteray, President of Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce comments “This plan could be bad news for the city – we need to balance the need for housing with the need for office space.  We’re already seeing businesses leave the city because they can’t find the space they need, and once they leave that means fewer jobs for people in Brighton and Hove.”

Businesses can contact the Chamber on 01273 719097 or admin@businessinbrighton.org.uk, or can read the full DCLG proposals at http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/planningandbuilding/relaxationchangeconsultation, where they can submit their views directly to the Department for Communities and Local Government.

 Copy by Rob Shepherd