Planning policy criteria for Class A5 hot food takeaways
Case reference FOI2025/00565
Received 17 March 2025
Published 25 March 2025
Request
1. If your local authority has planning criteria which determine the acceptability of planning applications for new Class A5 (or "Sui generis") hot food takeaway outlets, contained in an adopted or interim policy or guidance document (such as a Local Plan, Supplementary Planning Document, or Development Management Plan), please can you send us a copy of this document. Example criteria include traffic and parking considerations, the requirement of a health impact assessment, preventing high concentration of outlets in certain areas, exclusion zones around schools, and restricted opening hours.
2. If your adopted policy or guidance document superseded any previous versions that also contained Class A5 (or "Sui generis") hot food takeaway outlets planning criteria, please also send us the previous editions of this document.
3. If you no longer have an adopted policy or guidance document that contains Class A5 (or "Sui generis") hot food takeaway outlets planning criteria, but these criteria were contained in any superseded documents that are now out-of-date, please send us a copy of these out-of-date documents.
4. If you have never had an adopted policy or guidance document that contained Class A5 (or "Sui generis") hot food takeaway outlets planning criteria, please let us know. In these cases, if there are any current HFT planning policies included in a consultation document/draft Local Plan that has not been adopted yet, please send us a copy of this document and confirm its date of publication.
5. If you have answered YES to questions (1), (2) or (3), please can you confirm the date(s) that the relevant policies actually came into effect and/or stopped being applied, being as exact as possible.
Response
1. If your local authority has planning criteria which determine the acceptability of planning applications for new Class A5 (or "Sui generis") hot food takeaway outlets, contained in an adopted or interim policy or guidance document (such as a Local Plan, Supplementary Planning Document, or Development Management Plan), please can you send us a copy of this document. Example criteria include traffic and parking considerations, the requirement of a health impact assessment, preventing high concentration of outlets in certain areas, exclusion zones around schools, and restricted opening hours.
A: This information is publically available on various websites and can be viewed via the following links, as such we consider this information to be exempt under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 because it is reasonably accessible to you via other means. Please take this letter as a refusal notice under S17 of the Act.
Current Local Development Plan
Policies E5 and E6 address town centre uses, and Primary shopping areas respectively. As this document was adopted prior to the change of use classes (2020) it refers to use classes A2-A5 and Class D1-D2. Additionally, it refers to Neighbourhood Development Plans within the policy E6:
Herefordshire Core Strategy (Adopted October 2015)
The Core Strategy also saves Unitary Development Plan policy TCR1 “Central shopping and Commercial Areas”: Click here for saved policies document
Additional Policy can be found within Neighbourhood Development Plans (NDP) particularly the NDPs for the 5 Market Towns (Bromyard (No NDP), Kington (NDP failed at referendum), Ledbury (Made 13th June 2023), Leominster (Made 22nd March 2019), and Ross-on-Wye (Made 7th June 2021). There is no NDP for Hereford
Ledbury: Policy EE3.1 “Protection of Shopping Frontages and Primary Shopping Area)
Leominster: Policies LANP5 “New Business Development” and LANP6 “Development in Leominster town Centre”.
Ross-on-Wye: Policy E3 “Town Centre Uses”
Additionally Belmont Rural NDP within Hereford, which contain policies that would have an effect upon hot food takeaway outlets.
Belmont Rural (16th October 2017): Policy 7 “Supporting small and medium businesses in Belmont Rural”
There is no other guidance nor planning policy in a local context for Herefordshire, Paragraph 97 of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) (December 2024) provides additional guidance on applications for hot food takeaway outlets.
2. If your adopted policy or guidance document superseded any previous versions that also contained Class A5 (or "Sui generis") hot food takeaway outlets planning criteria, please also send us the previous editions of this document.
A: As above, this information is also publically available on Herefordshire Council’s website, and can be viewed via the following link, as such we consider this information to be exempt under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 because it is reasonably accessible to you via other means. Please take this letter as a refusal notice under S17 of the Act.
Herefordshire Core Strategy Main Modifications – This document highlights the previous versions of the adopted core strategy and the changes that have been made.
3. If you no longer have an adopted policy or guidance document that contains Class A5 (or "Sui generis") hot food takeaway outlets planning criteria, but these criteria were contained in any superseded documents that are now out-of-date, please send us a copy of these out-of-date documents.
A: As above, this information is also publically available on Herefordshire Council’s website, and can be viewed via the following link, as such we consider this information to be exempt under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 because it is reasonably accessible to you via other means. Please take this letter as a refusal notice under S17 of the Act.
Unitary Development Plan (Chapter 7 - town centres and retail) (Adopted March 2007 – Replaced October 2015. Please note, this document contains no weight in deciding planning applications for hot food takeaways. Click here for document
4. If you have never had an adopted policy or guidance document that contained Class A5 (or "Sui generis") hot food takeaway outlets planning criteria, please let us know. In these cases, if there are any current HFT planning policies included in a consultation document/draft Local Plan that has not been adopted yet, please send us a copy of this document and confirm its date of publication.
A: This information is publically available on Herefordshire Council’s website and can be viewed via the following links, as such we consider this information to be exempt under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 because it is reasonably accessible to you via other means. Please take this letter as a refusal notice under S17 of the Act.
Draft Local Plan Regulation 18 Document – This document has been published however, due to changes in national legislation and guidance, a new draft local plan will be considered to appropriately address these changes. However, policy PE3 “Enhancing town centre vitality” would have relevance when considering hot food takeaways applications.
Kington NDP – This document failed referendum and has not been made, it holds no weight in the planning process.
There are no other documents
5. If you have answered YES to questions (1), (2) or (3), please can you confirm the date(s) that the relevant policies actually came into effect and/or stopped being applied, being as exact as possible.
A: Please see the previous questions for the dates.
Documents
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