Labour pledges use class changes to help save high streets

Under existing rules, such shops are placed in the same use class as professional and financial services. This means that when a bank or building society closes, a betting shop or a payday lender can open up in those premises without permission from the local authority.

The proposed rules would allow councils to place certain shops into a new 'umbrella class'. Planning permission for opening a shop within the category could then be refused as it would constitute a change of use. 

"Currently if a bank branch closes down, there's nothing a council can do if a payday loan shop wants to move in and open up in the same place. Even if there's another lender next door. That can't be right," Miliband told delegates at the launch of Labour's local election campaign in Ipswich.

Miliband said he would create "powers so that local people can decide, through their councils, what shops can and can't open up".

"This will be different in local areas, local solutions to local problems. But it means that when they want, the people in our towns and cities can say: 'No. Enough is enough'," he said.

"The best way to stimulate town centres is not to try and limit competition by creating a new use class making it more difficult to change retail units to 'less desirable' retail uses," said Richard Ford, planning expert at Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com. "What is needed is more competitive town centre business rates, including a cap where necessary, more competitive car parking charges compared with out of town or edge of town retail parks, improved public transport and an easier route to permission for larger store floorplates."

"A new restrictive use class is going in the opposite direction to initiatives such as a Local Development Order designed to make it easier, rather than harder, to change use," he added.