Retail and Town Centre Needs Assessment Update

Tender description

1. Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council is seeking an external consultancy to produce an update in the form of an addendum to the Welwyn Hatfield Retail and Town Centre Needs Assessment, November 2007 (RTCNA) as subsequently updated in November 2010, March 2012 and August 2012. The core requirements of this tender are as follows: • To carry out a new household survey to produce an updated qualitative and quantitative assessment of the boroughs retail and leisure facilities. • To take into account changes in shopping patterns. • To update the retail / leisure capacity assessment. 2. If achievable and dependent on costs, there are also a number of additional elements of work that the council would also require the consultant to undertake. These include: • To update the health check of Welwyn Garden City and Hatfield town centres. • To update the audit of the boroughs retail centres and leisure facilities. • To consider and prepare, in light of the findings and any feedback following the production of the update, a critique of the appropriateness of the council’s proposed retail strategy as set out in the Emerging Core Strategy, 2012 and the Local Plan Consultation Document, January 2015. • To consider the potential impact of new neighbourhood centres to be delivered as part of future strategic housing growth, and whether there is a need for the council to set maximum retail threshold for these neighbourhood centres to protect existing town centres. • To consider and advise as to whether the Moors Walk large neighbourhood centre located in Panshanger should be expanded if it is found to be overtrading. • To review the recommendations of the 2007 RTCNA – particularly the recommendation that the threshold for considering impact of out of centre retail planning applications on existing centres should be set at 1000sqm