In order to qualify as a Local Service Centre in the Borough’s Settlement Hierarchy, a range of services and facilities are required to be present, sufficient in type and size to meet the day-to-day needs of residents in the settlement concerned and those in surrounding smaller villages and the wider countryside. These needs will vary from settlement to settlement, according, for example, to the nature and location of existing provision in the area and accessibility to Main Towns both within the Borough and outside it. The following list represents a broad “typology” formulated to illustrate the broad range of key services and facilities that would normally be expected to be found at a Local Service Centre. It responds to the advice in paragraphs 6 and 7 of PPS7.

Operation:

The typology is intended to serve two main purposes in the determination of applications for planning permission:

1. To steer development in rural areas to locations where it would make the greatest contribution to the delivery of a sustainable pattern of development. Thus, where development is proposed within a Local Service Centre that does not currently have the range, type or size of services or facilities to meet the demands that the development would place upon it, permission will either:
   • only be granted for development that, in scale or type, would be acceptable in the next lower category of settlement in the Council’s Settlement Hierarchy at appendix S2, or
   • planning conditions will be imposed or planning Obligations sought with a view to remedying the deficiency.
2. To inform decisions on planning applications that bear on the function of the settlement as a Local Service Centre, whether in the terms of suitably improving or enhancing the range, type and size of facilities and services available to the local community, or avoiding losses that would undermine the functioning of the settlement as a Local Service Centre.

The Typology

Population:

• A minimum population of 2,000 people is regarded as the minimum necessary to support the range of facilities necessary to enable a Local Service Centre to function as such.

Location:

• At a node on the intersection of public transport routes, and sufficiently distant from other Local Service Centres and settlements higher in the settlement hierarchy to avoid potentially mutual harmful impacts on economic viability.

Employment:

• A range of employment opportunities close at hand (ie an employment estate within or connected to the village by safe walking and /or cycling routes, or by a shuttle bus).

Transport:

• A single half hourly day-time bus or hourly rail service to one or more of the following destinations: Atherstone, Polesworth/Dordon, Coleshill, Tamworth, Nuneaton, Birmingham or Coventry, with additional services at weekends and during evening periods;
• OR a range of dedicated bus services to specific destinations identified in consultation with the local community (eg a commuter bus to a major employment site, two or more town centres or to a railway station, with additional timetabled services to a major supermarket, hospital and place of entertainment/recreation such as a multi-screen cinema, skating rink or sports stadium).
• Bus stops with shelters, seats, lights, timetables and, where practicable, real time information displays.

Education:

• A junior school (which may include a swimming pool available for community use and facilities for adult education).
• A choice of at least two modes of transport to a secondary school in addition to car/taxi (ie school bus, regular bus, walk, or cycle, the last two being on safe routes).

Shopping:

• A range of local convenience shops, and other Class A1, A2, A3, A4 and A5 uses including a post office and a small supermarket (not provided at a petrol station accessible only by car)
• Banking facility (may be a cash point)
• Petrol (or green refuelling) station

Health care:

• A doctor’s surgery, which may also include a pharmacy, dentist and other service facilities (such as acting as a centre for the distribution of “meals on wheels” and other home support).
• A sheltered home for the elderly.

Recreation, entertainment and leisure:

• Park/fair ground.
• Playing field/all weather playing pitch.
• A library or building suitable for use as a resource centre for electronic communications and for the delivery of community information including that concerning bus services and other transport.
• A hall of sufficient size to be used for a range of purposes (for showing films, staging plays, exhibitions, displays, meetings, clubs and societies).
• Public House or Licensed club.

Other community facilities:

• A place of worship
• A police presence/contact point for emergency/social services.
• Electronic communications (“wired villages” - for example Broadband or similar computer facility for home workers and home shoppers).

Housing:

• A mix of housing, including affordable housing.