High Street health

There is, I consider, a magic way of measuring footfall in our high streets. A company, Locomizer, measures and analyses anonymised mobile phone data and offline credit card spend.  That is every time you, or any body else, takes their mobile phone into the shopping area, or uses their credit card in a shop, Locomizer  will count that as a visit. So, they know on a monthly basis how well the high street is doing and can make comparisons with their pre-Covid data.

Unfortunately, Ipswich isn’t doing particularly well. The results of the March data suggest Ipswich is Moderately Weak (their words) with 21% of High Street Services vacant. Locomizer also suggest that Ipswich’s Spend Index is at 93 compared with a baseline of 100 prelockdown.

By way of comparison (and neither of these two are comparative towns):  Norwich is ‘Strong‘ and Cambridge ‘Moderately Strong’.  The other East Anglia towns measured are Luton, Basildon and Southend, all described as ‘Weak’.

(Data published by Centre for Cities)

 

HS2

One of the unsung advantages of HS2 is that it will increase capacity on the routes north out of London, in the short term to Birmingham but fairly soon thereafter, London – Manchester and eventually London – Leeds.

Will that help us here in Ipswich? Surprisingly, yes. By moving people on the new HS2 route the number of passenger trains per hour can be reduced on the existing West Coast Main Line (WCML). This will free up space for freight trains, both from Felixstowe and London Gateway. It is estimated that an additional 19 trains per day will be able to be accommodated on the WCML when HS2 is fully operational.

There are, of course, other constraints to train movements across East Anglia: the single section of track between Soham and Ely and the complex multiple junctions at Ely but an additional 19 freight trains per day equates to 1,500 container-carrying artics off the road.

 

Planning update

The Planning Bill in the Queen’s Speech
The Queen’s Speech last month set out that, rather than a separate Planning Bill in which the Government had proposed to radically overhaul the planning system, significantly scaled back changes to the planning system will now take place as part of the Levelling-up and 

Regeneration Bill.
I tentatively welcome some proposals in the speech and the Bill, including:

• confirmation that some of the most concerning proposals, such as zoning, nationally-set mandatory housing targets and permission in principle, have been dropped

• that the lighter reforms now proposed still seek to enable local people to have more involvement in the planning process

• measures aimed at helping to bring empty buildings back into use

• strengthening neighbourhood planning, allowing local priorities to be set

• greater priority for the environment and consideration of the landscape, wildlife and cultural heritage.

I particularly welcome the proposed new requirement that local plans and other planning documents must ensure that the use and development of land will contribute to the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change.

John Norman, Chairman

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