The impact of COVID-19 on the hot food takeaway planning regulatory environment: perspectives of local authority professionals in the North East of England

Abstract

Background & Aims: Planning regulations have been used to prevent the over-proliferation of hot food takeaways, minimising the impact of local obesogenic environments. To help mitigate the effects of lockdown, the UK government introduced temporary changes in March 2020 to Planning Regulations for England, allowing food retailers to open for takeaway services beyond ‘ancillary’ level without needing to apply for planning permission through permitted development rights (PDR). Businesses are required to notify their local authority (LA) when they implement PDRs. To better understand the impact of regulations on the policy and practice of key professional groups, Public Health England commissioned Teesside University to undertake scoping research in the North East of England. Methods: A focus group and interviews were conducted with 15 professionals from 7 of 12 North East LAs. Professions included Planners, Public Health Leads, Environmental Health Officers and Town Centre Managers. Data were analysed using a codebook thematic analysis approach. An interpretation meeting with some participants was conducted. Results: LAs were not aware of most businesses notifying them of new regulation adherence despite taking up PDRs, but were considered low-priority with many lacking formal recording procedures. There were concerns about health consequences of the changes, and consensus relating to ongoing issues with capacity across all professional groups, largely due to the continuing pandemic and absence of a strategy out of temporary measures. Concerns existed around ensuring cessation of restaurants trading as takeaways, and hygiene inspections backlog. Many (personally) saw new takeaways as a lifeline, offering broader menus and preserving local economies. Conclusion: Lack of information around the number of restaurants/pubs using PDR to trade as takeaway services, ongoing capacity issues of LAs and, at the time, the absence of a strategy post regulation changes, meant there were high levels of uncertainty regarding the impacts of these temporary measures.

‘Acceleration’ of the food delivery marketplace: Perspectives of local authority professionals in the North‐East of England on temporary COVID regulations

“…This research was time-limited, with all data collected within a 2-month period as LAs continued to recover from the pandemic, meaning liaising and contacting relevant professionals was difficult. Furthermore, as outlined in the differences between this study and its previous runthrough (Table 1), the food landscape is ever-changing and therefore any future generalisations applied via the TA B L E 1 Similarities and differences between 2021 (Moore et al, 2022) • Less concern about pubs/restaurants wanting to remain as takeaways given most appear to have returned to normal operations…”

“…Given these trends in the local food environments regarding the ancillary selling of foods, dark kitchens, and less footfall on high streets, it is becoming evident that planning is not designed with public health as a primary consideration, with planners, environmental health officers, and public health teams all describing the difficulties of working in the ‘new normal’; including unaccustomed food environments, extensive staff changes and amplified workloads. LAs struggled to react to the regulations after previously citing capacity issues (Moore et al., 2022) and now measuring the uptake of these policies post‐hoc is unlikely to occur in the near future as professionals attempt to catch‐up on lost work, or continue on towards more urgent projects. It was widely presumed that those businesses which took advantage of the temporary regulations are no longer doing so; however, as the role of collecting these data is unassigned, uncertainty regarding the potential impact remains.…”

“…In the reporting of this study, the Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research (SRQR) guidelines were consulted (O'Brien et al., 2014). The methodology for this evaluation has been outlined comprehensively in the previous year's study, of which this research aimed to replicate the interview and focus group elements (Moore et al., 2022). In short, in March 2022, a purposive sampling strategy was utilised, aiming to recruit local environmental health, planning and public health professionals from across the North East (several of which were participants from the preceding year's cohort).…”

“…With this in mind, beginning in January 2021, we spoke with public health professionals across the North‐East of England, finding substantial issues regarding staff capacity, with interviewees unaware of any data regarding the take‐up of the regulations. There were also great health concerns for the situation post‐pandemic, including how to monitor the consequences, before consideration of the recovery (Moore et al., 2022).…”

Changes in the number of new takeaway food outlets associated with adoption of management zones around schools: A natural experimental evaluation in England

“…1 ) that adopted takeaway management zones around schools between September 2013 and December 2017. Earlier instances of adoption could not be evaluated due to lack of data availability, while analysis of later adopters risked being contaminated by temporary COVID-19 related planning amendments ( Moore et al, 2022 ).

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