The recent fire at the Union Corner building, at the junction of Union Street and Gordon Street adjoining Glasgow Central Station, has brought renewed scrutiny to high-risk retail uses in historic buildings.
The building, a Category B-listed Victorian structure dating from 1851 and predating the station, forms part of Glasgow’s historic core. The blaze is understood to have originated in a ground floor vape retailer.
The immediate question has been how a vape retailer came to occupy premises of this nature? That reaction reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the scope of planning control and, more significantly, exposes a gap in the current regulatory framework. As the law stands throughout the UK, there is no planning basis for a local authority to prevent a vape retailer occupying premises with an established retail use.
While England is moving toward a licensing-based approach capable of regulating the location of the sale of tobacco and vapes, Scotland has elected not to adopt that model and remains reliant on a registration regime which does not provide equivalent controls.
Planning Control: Structural Limitations
The premises occupied by the vape shop in Union Corner benefited from an apparent lawful use of Class 1A (Shops, Financial, Professional, and Other Services), which Scotland is broadly equivalent to Class E in England. A recent application sought to change the use to a hot food takeaway (sui generis), but this was refused. The refusal did not impact or further restrict its existing use which remained Class 1A.
Within Class 1A use, the planning system does not distinguish clearly between types of goods or services offered within the premises. A change between retail occupiers does not require planning permission, and there is no mechanism for a Local Authority to assess the characteristics of the incoming use in planning terms.
The listed building status of the Union Corner building does not alter that position. So long as there are no internal or external alterations and the premises remain within their exist use class, neither planning permission nor listed building consent is required. In those circumstances, there is no opportunity for a Local Authority to consider the suitability of a particular type of new occupier under Class 1A.
Planning does retain a role in addressing risk where it relates to land-use compatibility. This is illustrated by a recent English decision refusing a mixed-use scheme in proximity to a chemicals facility on health and safety grounds. In that case, the issue was whether the location of new development was acceptable given off-site risk, rather than the regulation of the industrial process itself. This distinction is critical. The planning system can control where sensitive uses are located, but it does not regulate how activities within an established use are carried out.
Where risk arises from the nature of an activity, its overall acceptability can be addressed through licensing rather than planning.
Licensing and Regulation
It has long been recognised that planning decision makers are entitled to assume the effective operation of other legal regimes where those regimes provide for a clear outcome (Gateshead MBC v Secretary of State for the Environment [1995] Env. L.R. 37). The Gateshead principle is explicitly reflected in the NPPF (i.e. that planning decisions should assume that regulatory regimes will operate effectively), while in Scotland it operates as a matter of general planning practice.
Alcohol provides a clear comparator. Planning permission may allow a building to be used as a pub, but the sale of alcohol requires a separate licence under the Licensing Act 2003 (England and Wales) or the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 (in Scotland). Under each legislative regime, licensing authorities can refuse applications, impose conditions and revoke licences.
The Union Corner fire may have been caused by lithium-ion batteries stored in the vape shop. While the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005 and associated regulations (equivalent to Fire Safety Order 2005 in England) require such risks to be identified and managed through fire risk assessments, this operates at the level of internal safety rather than land-use acceptability, and provides no mechanism in planning terms to assess whether that activity is appropriate in that particular location.
Regulation of Tobacco and Vapes – Proposed Reforms
The Tobacco and Vapes Bill (TVB) is a UK-wide measure which is currently progressing through its final stages and is expected to receive Royal Assent shortly. It introduces a UK-wide ban on tobacco sales to those born after the 2009, and a broader framework for regulating tobacco and vaping products, with key provisions expected to take effect from 2027.
In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the TBV introduces a licensing regime for retailers of tobacco and vaping products. This will:
- require retailers to obtain a licence;
- allow local authorities to refuse applications;
- enable conditions to be imposed;
- provide powers to suspend or revoke licences.
By contrast Scotland, via its devolution settlement, has not adopted that model proposed by the TBV. Instead, Scotland has decided to retain registration regime under the Tobacco and Primary Medical Services (Scotland) Act 2010 and the Health (Tobacco, Nicotine etc and Care) (Scotland) Act 2016
Registration enables enforcement of age restrictions, but it does not provide powers to:
- refuse retailers ability to trade based on location or suitability;
- impose operational conditions;
- control the number or distribution of such uses.
It therefore does not perform the same regulatory function as a licensing regime. Most critically, while introducing licensing elsewhere in the UK, the TVB remains focused on public health and retail control and does not provide a mechanism to assess or regulate operational risks such as the storage of lithium-ion batteries or the suitability of such activities in particular locations.
The Regulatory Gap
The Union Corner fire exposes a structural limitation in the current framework. Each regime operates within its own sphere – planning controls the use of land, fire safety legislation regulates how risks are managed within premises, and tobacco and vape regulation focuses on public health and retail compliance. None of these regimes is designed to address whether higher-risk retail activities are appropriate in particular locations. In Scotland, this limitation is particularly pronounced in the regulation of tobacco and vape retail, where only a registration system applies and no licensing mechanism exists to assess suitability or impose conditions.
In the context of fire risk from batteries, the key issue is the absence of a regulatory mechanism capable of asking not merely how risk is managed, but whether said risk should arise in that location at all. The TVB goes a considerable way in addressing public health risks from vape products but does not extend to operational safety risks. Further licensing reforms could fulfil that function by enabling local authorities to assess suitability by reference to fire safety risk, including the storage of lithium-ion batteries, in the context of location (e.g. listed buildings or premises beneath residential units). This would mirror the approach taken in alcohol licensing, where suitability is assessed on public safety grounds, albeit in relation to different types of risk. Of the available mechanisms, it is the only approach capable of addressing both location and risk in a coherent and effective manner.
