The Intermediary – August 2026 - Flipbook - Page 63
SPECIALIST FINANCE
Opinion
Burnham’s
planning policies
could spell disaster
P
rime Minister Andy
Burnham says town
centres have been
“hollowed out” by
decades of decline and
that “for many people,
the high streets they grew up with
have become unrecognisable.” He’s got
a point.
But his plans for improving
high streets include ensuring new
vape shops will require planning
permission, as well as tightening the
definition of a vape shop to prevent
businesses avoiding the rules by
describing themselves as a general
convenience store or retailer. That,
and giving councils more powers to
block new being shops.
He’s wrong in multiple ways. First,
he is misdiagnosing the problem.The
prevalence of vape shops is a symptom
of the retreat of retailers from the high
street, not the cause.
Internet shopping has changed
everything. The old-fashioned
high street was already dying as
Woolworths and other traditional
retailers were outcompeted by internet
disruptors. Indeed, we see this in the
number of commercial mortgages
and bridges we are arranging on
warehouses powering last-mile
delivery of goods.
So, Burham is wrong when he says
vape shops and being shops have
replaced the shops that people are
crying out for – Amazon has. If people
were crying out for those shops,
Missguided, TM Lewin and Lloyds
pharmacies wouldn’t have le the high
street in the first place.
The rise of internet shopping
is also one of the drivers of the
disproportionate proliferation of
fast-food premises on the high street.
You can’t download a kebab. The
high street increasingly survives
where physical presence still maers,
whether that means eating, drinking,
geing a haircut, exercising or
accessing services that cannot be
delivered digitally.
While I appreciate that there are
other factors at work, to a degree,
the proliferation of barbers reflects
not merely a link to illegal activity
and crime, but also to the fact even
Jeff Bezos hasn’t figured out how to
provide a haircut online.
The wrong bet
So, Burham’s proposals are likely to
lead to more empty shops. This is
linked to the second way Burnham
is wrong.
The Financial Times has published
data showing the number of being
shop premises has fallen from 8,822 in
2015, to 5,872 in 2025, a 33% reduction
as being moves online, too.
So, his plans to scrap the rule known
as ‘aim to permit’ – which currently
restricts councils’ ability to refuse
new being shops and 24-hour slot
machine shops – will not make a great
deal of difference.
He also wants to require planning
permission for new adult gaming
centres, which offer 24-hour access
to gambling machines. Again,
the number of adult gaming sites
is in retreat, with the number of
premises falling from 1,610 in 2015 to
1,502 in 2025 – a 7% fall. Whatever
is reshaping the high street isn’t
gambling premises.
And, as an aside, why shouldn’t
we want gambling shops on our high
streets? If people wanted artisan
butchers, delicatessens, or traditional
fruit and veg shops, they would go
there and shop. They don’t.
Burnham says he is giving local
people a “real say over what opens
on their high street.” But no one
DUNCAN KREEGER
is founder and CEO at TAB
needs Government mandated shops.
Consumers vote with their feet.
Planning policy should recognise
this economic reality, rather than
aempting to preserve a retail
landscape that technology and
consumer behaviour have already
consigned to history.
On the other hand, I admit Andy
Burham is right when he says high
streets need to be rejuvenated.
Indeed, plenty of property investors
want to rejuvenate high streets.
Lenders like TAB would like to help
them do it. But another layer of
red tape is not the way to go about
achieving such a laudable goal. We
need less planning bureaucracy,
not more.
A much beer solution to reversing
the “hollowing out” of our high streets
would be to push planning reform
further, helping the conversion
of commercial premises to semicommercial etcetera, with more resi
property on high streets, increasing
footfall and local demand for the shops
that remain.
At the very least, the PM could
increase minimum densities in town
centres. As suggested by thinktank
Create Streets, local authorities could
maximise the potential for making use
of previously developed land and sites
which can be intensified – including
the sensible inclusion of higher
buildings at street corners.
For high street sites, new
developments should at least match
existing densities – or achieve
minimum of 60 dwellings per hectare,
whichever is higher. That’s how we
rejuvenate high streets. An increase
in planning regulation, on the other
hand, will just mean even more empty
and boarded-up shops. ●
August 2026 | The Intermediary
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