Charity Shops should be assigned a Planning Class

Charity Shops should be assigned a building class under the Town and Country Planning Act.

This would allow towns to better control the location of charity shops within each “centre”.

Why does this idea matter?

Charity shops are exempt from council tax, under mandatory provision, however there is no provision for councils to control the location of where “free council tax areas” apply.

Many town centres are seeing an influx of Charity Shops as shop vacancy rate increases. This leads to an artificially high occupancy rates which leads to expansion of new shopping centres.

Adding a planning class to charity shops would allow councils to better to control the visual frontage