They perform an important shopping and community function, but are often poorly defined and recognised in policy terms.
Numerous challenges face district centres.
In particular, there is significant development pressure from food retailers, who are experiencing difficulty in obtaining planning permission for non-central operations. As a consequence, superstore development is becoming increasingly prevalent within existing centres, as a compromise between retailer requirements and the provisions of retail planning policy at a local and national level. This paper traces the evolution of district centre planning policy, and the trends of food retail development which have run parallel to it. Responses to district centre growth and decline at a local level, through development plan policy, are examined using a detailed local authority survey and secondary data collection methods in the form of two recent appeal cases and the Regeneration Charter recently proposed for declining district centres by a major food retailer. The research produces some noteworthy findings, primarily highlighting the deficiencies of current national retail guidance in a number of key areas.