Land Securities’ Peter Cleary was in celebratory mood at the round table, having just received the BCSC Gold award for Whitefriars in Canterbury.

“Whitefriars ticked all the boxes,” he said. But he pointed out that it wasn’t always like that and Canterbury City Council’s insistence on an open-air mixed-use scheme was a decade ahead of its time.

“We’re fortunate that the investment market has moved in our direction over the period that it took to develop Whitefriars,” Cleary noted. “Nine years ago we saw the 35 residential units as a negative,” he remembered, “but over time that’s changed and as we’ve gone through successive schemes the residential content has increased. Exeter has 130 residential units; Bristol 130 and Cardiff will have 300.”

But he expressed concern about the mix of residential development that is taking place in many city centre sites. “We’ve really got to get the owner-occupiers in rather than just selling to investors as we do now. But to do that we need to look at schools, medical centres and so on.”

Charles Bell of Scottish-based architects Keppie Design agreed. “Buy-to-let doesn’t create that sense of community, but I’m not sure that it’s something developers can control,” he said.

Planning specialist Bill Brisbane of Roger Tym & Partners asked: “Isn’t it easier to build social housing, where you deal with a Registered Social landlord?”

And Hammond Philips founder Barry Hammond suggested that leasing the residential element directly might afford developers more control. “I’m not sure that anyone’s done any research on this, but I think there’s an increasing number of people in the middle-to-upper income brackets who are looking to rent in town centres,” he said.

“Overall the trend towards mixed-use development is gathering momentum,” said Cleary. “All consumers have a choice now - we can all go to Tesco Extra and get all we need, so why do people still choose to go into town centres? The answer is because they’re great places - they have that diversity and retail is the glue that pulls everything together.”

But Roger Tym’s Brisbane warned that smaller towns might struggle to compete. “Development in smaller towns is often food-led, which can make it difficult to get residential in because of the noise issues associated with servicing the store.”

Bell pointed to a new project in Denny, near Falkirk, which Keppie has designed for Henry Boot Developments as an example of what can be achieved. “The scheme’s driven by a 25,000-sq ft food store, and we’ve partly got round the noise issue by putting offices over the food store and the residential over the unit shops,” he explained. “But height also helps and moving the residential up to the second storey alleviates the noise impact.”

“I think proportionately the smaller towns will benefit most from incorporating residential,” said Hammond. “We’re working on a scheme in Dartford and we’re finding that if you bring people back to live in the town centre there’s all the more reason for the retailers to come back.”

“The trouble with small towns is they’re very often the places that grabbed food superstores in the first place,” said Cleary. And Brisbane pointed out that small-town schemes can take as long get off the ground as major projects. “The economics are difficult so you need strong political leadership - people with a ‘delivery’ attitude,” he said.

Hammond cited St Albans as an example: although it has a far wealthier catchment than nearby Watford, rents are considerably lower because repeated attempts at new development have been stymied by local opposition. “You have a very articulate electorate who’d rather be able to buy their fish from the market,” he said.

“Too often there’s a lack of political drive,” said Cleary. “You often see it where there have been hung councils and it’s not been possible to arrive at a consensus. The better officers leave because they think ‘I’m never going to achieve anything here.’”

But even where there is a political appetite for new development, projects can take half a lifetime. Cleary pointed to Livingston as an example; “They had talented officers and a clear political will but it still took 30 years to get the second phase of development. Only then did it achieve critical mass and it hasn’t looked back since.”

However Brisbane pointed out: “If Bathgate had gone ahead, or if the Gyle hadn’t had its size capped, then that second phase would never have happened.”

“I can see the same happening in Corby,” said Hammond. “Yes, that’s a really good example of how retail can connect lots of other things,” said Cleary. He explained that Land Securities had acquired Corby town centre as part of its 2005 purchase of the Tops Estates portfolio, and work was already under way on a major redevelopment and refurbishment project.

“But in Corby it’s also about changing perceptions of a place,” said Gaye Charlton of M&N Associates. “And that’s where communications come in, especially at the pre-planning stage where you need to identify all the key interest groups and open up a dialogue with them.”

Car parking provision and public transport links are also key considerations in any town centre development now, but Cleary questioned whether today’s level of car parking would always be necessary. “There’s an emerging body of thought among the under-30s who are quite happy not to have a car. They say: ‘If I need a car, I’ll rent one,’” he said. And Brisbane pointed out that Tony Pidgeley’s Berkeley Homes no longer sees a need to provide dedicated parking spaces in its residential developments.

“Adequate car parking is essential, but we’re already designing our car parks so they’re flexible and could be converted to other uses in the future,” said Cleary.

He said that new investment was already swinging the balance in favour of public transport. “When the Mayor of London brought in £300m of new buses patterns of use changed dramatically he said. "Middle class people are now happy to take the bus once again.”

And Brisbane pointed out that this was not just a London phenomenon. “Dublin has just announced e3bn of new investment in public transport, on top of the new LUAS tram service,” he said. “We’re working on the remodelling of Liffey Valley and that centre will be served by two new railway lines.”

Brisbane said that more car parking was not always the answer. “I’ve advising the council in Kingston-upon-Thames,” he said. “Morley and their development partners want more car parking when in fact the town centre’s existing car parks aren’t fully used because the roads leading to them are clogged.”

But how is all this investment in public transport going to be paid for? Certainly there is no political will to raise income tax and in his November pre-budget statement Chancellor Gordon Brown floated the idea of a Planning Gain Supplement. “The last chancellor called Brown - George Brown - introduced a Development Land Tax and all development activity stopped for five years,” remembered Hammond. “There are already so many obstacles to making things happen in town centres,” said Cleary. “What we need is an incentive not a tax on development. I’d like to see town centres made a tax-free zone.”

And Brisbane warned the proposal was at odds with the government’s desire to promote an urban renaissance. “We’ve seen plenty of fine words from central Government but they really should be supported by the fiscal regime,” he said. He warned any such levy could prove hard to administer. “Valuing sites before and after planning permission is going to be very complicated,” he said.

So the consensus was that integrating a mix of uses is going to be the biggest challenge facing developers going forward.

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