From "New Start" magazine 15 June 2007:

"Minister makes pledge on town centre planning tests:
A government minister this week reassured MPs that retail planning
reforms would not weaken the package of policies credited with reviving
Britain's high streets over the past decade. Planning Minister Yvette
Cooper ruled out a return to the "destructive" policies of the 1980s and
1990s which were blamed for the decline of Britain's town and city
centres. ..... [She] insisted that any replacement for the "needs test"
would continue to support complex town centre redevelopment projects."

In a later article on the same subject, Rynd Smith of the Royal Town
Planning Institute says, "You really have to ask why we might suddenly
risk the rash of bypass sheds and allow the sustainable travel cat out
of the bag at the same time. I hope common sense prevails".

The Liatris planning application does not, of course, support complex
town centre redevelopment - it encourages "retail bypass sheds" and it
means the death of Fore Street, Queen Street and Cross Street shops and
the movement of the "town centre" from the range of small, independent
shops there to a "clone town" centre based on two enormous shopping sheds.