The Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government has published new Retail Planning Guidelines and an accompanying Retail Design Manual. The convenience retail floorspace caps remain as published in the Draft Guidelines in November 2011 in light of a general acceptance as to the need for caps, however the consultation draft was revised to more clearly state that the scale of retail provision across cities and towns must align with the settlement policies of relevant development plans and local plans.Furthermore, the finalised guidelines outline greater detail in relation to:

• the new requirement for joined up approaches to planning for the retail sector across local authority boundaries;
• a general presumption against out of town retail centres;
• clarification of certain retail planning definitions to reflect various changes in the retail sector;