Can you help to save our local shops?

The problem

Recently, Southend-on-Sea City Council gave approval to the conversion of a shop to a flat at 69 Hamlet Court Road (next door to Mile and a Third). This is proposed with the lounge, bedroom and kitchen all in one space, so that the natural lighting requirement is only achieved through the main shop window. It makes for a very poor quality, small living environment, directly off the street.

The approval was given at the 5th application attempt by the property owner so whilst the council could resist the previous 4 applications, in the end approval could not be prevented. The loss of the business premises takes away the business frontage and this will be detrimental to neighbouring shops, bars and cafes.

This development is all part of planning class E (commercial) to class C3 (residential) permitted development changes where a low bar of ‘prior approval’ from the council is all that is needed. And the problem is almost certain to get much, much worse as more business premises are lost to poor quality bedsit flats.

Elsewhere, we want to see good quality flats, of all sizes, at first floor level and above, to support local residence and regeneration of the road. But the ground floor should be retained for shops and other business, and community uses.

What can be done about this?

There are measures that the council could take to prevent this change of use with something called Article 4 Directions – as used by many other councils across the country. This is a simple check that prevents this near automatic change of use, requiring any property owner that wants to make this change of use to obtain full planning permission. With a full planning permission application comes checks against all the local plan policies, including the protection of the neighbouring business frontages.

Another possible remedy is Rent Auctions, introduced by government last December. This is where the council can require a rent auction at an empty shop (empty for at least 365 days, or 366 in two years), so that the site is taken up by a new trader at a viable rent, helping to regenerate the road.

Please give your support and join this campaign

The 'Hamlet Court Calling' project, working on local regeneration, is asking you to support this campaign to SAVE OUR SHOPS, protect Hamlet Court Road and to bring in the Article 4 Direction that can help to control these damaging changes of use.

This campaign is sponsored by:

Hamlet Court Calling – supporting local regeneration – see hamletcourtcalling.org

Milton Society – supporting local heritage and regeneration – see miltonsociety.com