structure town centre review...– footfall creation – finance and management alignment –...

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Town Centre Review

Professor Leigh Sparks,

Institute for Retail Studies,

University of Stirling


Structure

1. Crisis, What Crisis?

2. High Streets and Town Centres

3. Fraser Review; Government Response


Crisis on the High Street


Crisis = Reports

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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly?

Recommendations Flagship Reactions

28 Exceptional Sign-off; Town

Teams

Ignored; Pilots; TV

publicity crisis

31 Voluntary Tax on National

Chains; Rates Revaluation

“A Load of Crap”

(Brandon Lewis)

27 Government and People in

Place-Making

Embraced; any new

money?


High Streets and Town Centres

Consumer Change

Recessionary Shaping

Retail Responses


Consumer Change

• Time and Money

• Demographics

• Access and Travel

• Product and Service

Demands

• Product and Process

Innovation


Retail Responses

• New locations and formats

• Role of convenience

• On-line retailing

• New “shopping” models

• Questions of space and

place

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New Locations and Formats


The Convenience Boom


But What is Convenience Today?


The First 15 years of the Internet

Year Launch

1990 WWW invented

1995 Amazon.com; eBay

1996 Dell.com

1997 First m-commerce (SMS)

1998 Google; PayPal

2000 Tesco.com; Asos

2001 Wikipedia; Blogs

2003 MySpace

2004 The Facebook

2005 YouTube

2006 Twitter

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One Impact


The Online Distribution Issue

• “Dark stores”

– Urban conurbations

• Click and Collect

– Large stores

– Urban collection/delivery

– Argos and Ebay


The Blended Retail Revolution?

• Has changed:

– How we shop

– How we think about

shopping

– How we tell others

about shopping and

retailing

– How retailers sell

– Retail operations and

practices


Pulling it Together? Retail Week

20/9/2013

• 40% turnover online by 2020

• Online sales up 17% in first half

2013

• 67% of JLP customers use more

than one channel

• Delivery service with Collect+ to

be launched

• 5,000 convenience stores in

under-represented countries such

as Scotland, Northern Ireland and

Wales

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Recessionary Shaping …

• The Banking Crisis

• The Economic

Downturn and Various

Measures

• Unemployment and

Loss of Disposable

Income

• Zombie Companies and

Property


… Provides Some Opportunities


The Retail Problem: Too Many Shops/Too

Much (Wrong) Space

• Structural Change

– Consumer behaviour

– Business reactions

• Recessionary Overlay

– Consumer concerns

– The new realities in

property and banking

• Spatial Change

– We need less space

– We need better fit space


Let’s Pause …

• Long run change in what we think retail is about

(agents of social cohesion and change or agents of

social harm?)

• Long and medium run change in retail operations

and practices (how many shops do we need?

where?)

• New channels and issues about blending (collection

and returns for example)

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Town Centres and High Streets

• Crisis of Retail Space

• Crisis of Town Centres as

well as High Streets

• Big City Centres doing

better/more resilient?

• Smaller towns in real

difficulty?


Decentralisation: Not just retailing

• We’ve encouraged

fragmentation,

decentralisation, neglect and

decline

• Schools, Hospitals, Living Space,

Cinemas, Football Grounds,

Offices, Hotels, Colleges and

Universities, not only Shops,

have been “moved out”

• In smaller towns withdrawal of

many operators and services


Town Centres

• Decline in importance

• Concentration of area

(prime zone)

• Costs have risen faster

• Rates are a big issue

• Vacancies and

dereliction – not just ex-

shops and not just

street level


The Issue?

“Town centres, as we currently see them, and as

most people nostalgically romanticise them, are

in the main anachronistic irrelevancies unsuited

to the changed consumer, business, social and

economic world. We do no one any favours by

clinging to an outdated vision of a past that

arguably never existed, and certainly does not

match our modern twenty-first century society.”

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Why do Town Centres Matter?

• Defining Feature

• Vital Resource

• Social and Economic

Benefits

• Improve Quality of Life

• Heart of Government

Priorities


Strategic Objectives of the Scottish

Government

Objectives Retail or Town Centre Issues

Wealthier and Fairer Vitality of places and wide social access to retail spaces

Healthier Retailers as agency of change

Safer and Stronger The need to develop communities and places

Smarter The role of retailing in providing education and careers;

broadband etc availability and opportunities

Greener Reducing the social and public impact of retail activities


Enough Already

• Towns centres are dysfunctional; people have

reacted to this, but the system(s) have not

• Space and space use are massive wastes in the

hearts of our communities

• Cost burdens of going to, doing up and

operating in town centres are out of line

• The management of towns and town centres

has not been working for some time


The Fraser Review

• Patrick Geddes: Folk,

Work, Place

– Town Centres First

– Town Centre Living

– Vibrant Local Economies

– Enterprising Communities

– Accessible Public Services

– Digital Towns

– Pro-Active Planning

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The Good

• Portas/Grimsey – the public agenda

• We have a problem and people do care

• Some places are getting it

• There is no lack of talent out there

• We’re pretty clear about the problems


The Bad

• The town centre deniers

• There’s no votes in town centres

• The banks (it’s compulsory these days) and

some of the property companies and owners

• We’re not very clear about the solutions

• The “system” is slanted against town centres

• Money is in short supply


The Ugly

• Self-inflicted wounds leave more than physical scars

• Rates – we know it is wrong but we don’t have a fully

worked out solution

• VAT – we know it is wrong but can’t be bothered to

work out a solution

• Value – how do we define social value?

• Management – why aren’t local authorities proud of

their towns? And how do we get “buy-in” from all?


So, What to do, When?

• Short-term

– Town Centre First

– Footfall creation

– Finance and Management alignment

– Energising the local community (and not simply the usual suspects)

• Medium-term

– Rates and public finance

– VAT rethinking

– Space use re-imagining

– Realistic and practical vision development

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The Scottish Government

Response to Fraser

• 39 Actions

• Partnership “on the journey”

• Sets priority for place

• Community involvement,

ownership and use

• Some incentives

• What does it mean on the

ground?

• Is it enough to encourage and

prioritise?


Mackay at the CPG: Plan Highlights

• Proactive planning

• Repopulation of our town centres

• Digital connections

• Greater use of culture and event strategies

• Working with key partners (eg SFF)

• Pragmatic consideration of town centre policy


Mackay at the CPG: Government

Help

• Extension of sequential approach

• Extension of Fresh Start Scheme (rates relief

on filling empty properties)

• LA powers to support local rates relief

schemes to be continued through Community

Empowerment Bill

• Maintain Small Business Bonus Scheme

• Create a toolbox to create local solutions for

local businesswww.stirlingretail.comwww.stirlingretail.comwww.stirlingretail.comwww.stirlingretail.com

BUT

• COSLA and Town Centre First (and others)

• No control over the big levers

• The referendum may clear the field - or may

not

• The lack of capacity in places to engage

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We’re at The Tipping Point


Web: www.stirlingretail.com

Email: [email protected]

Telephone: 01786 467384

Twitter: sparks_stirling

Contact Points

structure town centre review...– footfall creation – finance and management alignment –...

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