Retention of Economic Development Land and Buildings

It is important that economic development land and buildings which are well located and suited to such purposes are retained so as to ensure a sufficient ongoing supply. Accordingly, planning permission should not normally be granted for proposals that would result in the loss of land zoned for economic development use. Any decision to reallocate such zoned land to other uses ought to be made through the LDP process. While the same principle should also apply generally to unzoned land in settlements in current economic development use (or land last used for these purposes); councils may wish to retain flexibility to consider alternative proposals that offer community, environmental or other benefits, that are considered to outweigh the loss of land for economic development use.