Regeneration agencies identified the overall benefit of MU is to increase economic performance by maximising use within cities, to ensure their ongoing sustainability. In their responses, the Agencies confirmed issues such as vibrancy, vitality, giving people choice and the creation of sustainable communities to be key outcomes and benef

From a Landlords perspective, management of the development involves setting realistic service charges and this can be problematic. Residential users sometimes wanting to have more individual influence on the area and arrangements whereas non-residential tenants have a very accurate understanding and the charge tends to be determined far in advance.

The responses from the Planners did not reveal anything specific in terms of costings, but they did confirm a problem in that (in some locations), institutional investors were not willing to support residential above office use1 (see para xxxxx below for details).

Costs can increase by planning conditions being imposed. An example of this was where an MU scheme was submitted with Commercial B1/Studio use. Planning approval contained a condition that the B1 use is limited to use by artists for painting/sculpture. This had the effect of devaluing the property in that class B1 commercial spaces were worth £1.50sqm whereas it would have been £6.50sqm without restrictions. The intention of the scheme was for studio space for use by IT people/designer mixed together with IT publishers etc. It may require the developer to challenge planning conditions, resulting in delays and increased costs.

Planners identified benefits of Mixed Use (MU) as a way of creating sustainable communities, aiding integration, achieving travel to work patterns, a good a valuable way of bringing people back into the city, encouraging a 24 hour city ethos. Two of the 4 planners interviewed expressed site and location as being key factors when considering this approach, ie MU would be preferable where there are larger sites, or where the LA policy is to target/build sustainable communities.

Some topics in this essay:
Local Authorities, Costs Regeneration, B1/Studio Planning, Commercial Sector, Centres Liverpool, Benefits Developers, Mixed Development, PIP Programme, Mixed MU, Benefits Regeneration, mixed development, local authorities, mu development, regeneration agencies, land assembly, responses indicated, interviewee confirmed, low values, gap funding, sustainable communities, sound proofing materials, insufficient value developers, inhibitor mu development, inhibition mu development, loss gap funding,