The human version (we wrote this, not the council)
This section covers planning for town centres. Aylesbury and High Wycombe are centres of regional importance, supported by smaller centres across the county. The Plan identifies a need for 59,000 sqm of floorspace for retail, food and drink, and leisure and cultural uses by 2035. The first focus is bringing vacant units back into use; cutting vacancy rates to 10% would provide 14,300 sqm. Longer term, most new floorspace will come through large mixed-use allocations linked to population growth.
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Planning for Town Centres
4.28 Buckinghamshire has two town centres of regional importance - Aylesbury and High Wycombe (see retail hierarchy). These centres attract visitors from a broad catchment, and we need to ensure they remain vibrant centres that people choose to visit. This means that we need to ensure that there is an appropriate range of shopping and leisure facilities. There is a range of smaller centres in towns and villages throughout Buckinghamshire that serve smaller catchments and allow people to meet their day-to-day needs. The Local Plan identifies a requirement for 59,000 sqm of floorspace for retail, food / beverage and leisure / cultural uses by 2035. Initially the plan focuses on bringing vacant units in existing centres back into use and through mixed use allocations in our town centres. Reducing the level of vacancies in our centres to 10% will accommodate 14,300 sqm of floorspace, the Council’s regeneration team considers that some of this gap has been filled already through the occupation of vacant units. In the medium to longer term the majority of the additional floorspace is associated with population growth and so, allocations for these uses as part of large-scale mixed-use allocations are proposed to accommodate projected capacity.
4.29 The Council has an adopted Regeneration Framework with three sub-strategies for Aylesbury, Chesham and High Wycombe. This framework highlights the potential of our towns and villages and in the case of the three sub-strategies sets out visions and highlights key opportunities in our three largest towns. The Local Plan supports the delivery of these ambitions.