Plans to stop new takeaways opening too close to Northampton schools cannot go ahead

A council has been told to scrap a plan to ban takeaways from opening within a five minute walk from schools in Northampton.

West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) proposed the rule as part of a planning document but government planning inspectors said they were unable to find any proven link between the distance of schools and takeaways and obesity.

WNC had wanted to include the policy in its Local Plan for Northampton, which outlines where development should take place in the area until 2029.

The Planning Inspectorate said while there is “clear evidence of an obesity problem in Northampton”, the council must scrap the policy.

The plan was initially submitted by the former Northampton Borough Council (NBC) in February 2021 and a public hearing was conducted in November 2021. Other modifications were made to the initial plan in June 2022 and those went out to consultation between November and December 2022. WNC is expected to approve the final plan in coming months.

NBC and WNC had wanted to write in its planning rules that it could stop takeaways from opening 400 metres – about a five minute walk – from Northampton’s primary and secondary school entrances. It used evidence from Public Health England that obesity is responsible for more than 30,000 deaths every year. It said obese people were more at risk of contracting some cancers and more likely to develop high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes.

It said 68.1% of adults in Northampton were overweight or obese, compared to 62% of people in England. About 22.7% of four and five-year-olds and 36.4% of 10 and 11-year-olds in Northampton were also found to be overweight or obese.

WNC said it felt the Local Plan had to “address these challenges with health and wellbeing, its relationship with [a] poor diet and facilities that contribute to this”.

The Planning Inspectorate said it had considered the proposal and a briefing and evidence paper published in 2020 by Public Health Northamptonshire about obesity. But they said they did not find “the link between the location of schools, takeaways and obesity to be proven” and that it was not justified.