Market forces will carve up our high streets

© Provided by The GuardianPhotograph: Rex/Shutterstock

Polly Toynbee is right to say that the demise of our high streets can be halted (Department stores are far more than just shops. Their loss leaves a hole in the heart, 28 January). But she fails to mention the government's current proposal to allow shops, cafes and other high street uses to change to residential use without the need for planning permission which, far from halting their demise, will only speed it up.

© Photograph: Rex/ShutterstockA row of closed shops and restaurants in south London.

This latest example of the government's obsession with deregulation will do lasting damage to high streets. It removes the opportunity for communities to manage and adapt their town centres and high streets through local planning policies. Instead, market forces would inevitably fragment and erode valuable facilities in a piecemeal manner that would contribute further to their decline.

It is quite right that opportunities should be taken to bring more housing into town centres, but this should be done in a managed way. Lessons must be learned from the disastrous permitted development rights that have allowed poor-quality homes to be carved out of old office blocks over the last five years. Is this also to be the fate of our high streets?

Peter Studdert

Cambridge