The Changing Face of the UK High Street: Forecasting the future for 2020 Professor Cathy #HSUK2020

Our partner HSUK2020 towns: Alsager, Altrincham, Ballymena, Barnsley, Bristol (St George), Congleton, Holmfirth, Market Rasen, Morley and Wrexham

100,000!

An academic study. Why bother? People do not want to go into six different shops for six different articles; they prefer to buy the lot in one shop. The American Grocer, 1892 For better or worse this distributive revolution is carrying us away from shopkeeping to mass distribution McNair, 1931

Change in retailer location

Department for Transport 2011

Online share of home retailing 2014 Centre for Retail Research 2013

Online retailing 16% pa £52 bn in 2015 M-retailing 62% this year £7.92 bn Centre for Retail Research 2013

Town centre share of retail spend Parliament 2014

Vital & Viable Town Centres Planning Policy Guidance/Statements Business Improvement Districts High Street Britain 2015 The Portas Review Understanding High Street Performance Future High Streets Forum The response

Place management

Nature of place management schemes IPM 2009

What causes High Street Change? What influence do individual locations have?

Mostly from UK and Europe

City Centre Town Centre High Street Neighbourhood Centre District Centre Suburban Centre Out of town Centre Focus of data

166 factors influence performance

And if 166 factors were not enough….. Partner towns identified 50 additional factors that influence the High Street 33 additional studies reviewed 201 factors finally identified, but: –how much influence does each one have? –what should towns be focussing on?

The Delphi Technique The Delphi method is unique in its method of eliciting and refining group judgement as it is based on the notion that a group of experts is better than one expert when exact knowledge is not available. (Paliwoda, 1983).

22 Experts participated PractitionerAcademic Major retailerManchester Metropolitan University Shopping centres ownerUniversity of Leicester Urban consultantUniversity of Dundee Retail letting agencyUniversity of Ulster Urban policy groupOxford University Trade associationUniversity of Manchester Professional bodyUniversity of Liverpool University of Portsmouth University of Loughborough

Consensus reached on 1.How much influence each factor has on the vitality and viability of the High Street 2.How much control a location has over the factor

Not worth it!Get on with it! Forget it!Live with it!

Top 25 priorities

Forecasting the future for your High Street

The HSUK2020 Model of High Street Change

Data Footfall supplied by Springboard 62 UK towns and cities 30 months of footfall ( ) 563,828,709 people counted!

Spatial factors Location Distance to centre Size/Type of town Spatial structure Towns can’t do anything about these factors! Towns in NW & NE have 10% less footfall than expected

Macro factors Economy Consumer trends Business rates Ageing population Technology Retail planning policy Towns can’t change these on their own 25% decline in footfall in last 3 years (internet shopping and recession) We predict 21% decline by 2020

Meso factors Barriers to entry Competition (other towns) Comparison/Convenience Out of town shopping Tenant variety Vacancy rates Towns interact with these/have some Influence A stronger or OOT centre within 10 miles account for 30% less footfall

Micro factors Cleanliness Visual appearance Networking Opening Hours Attractions Centre Marketing Amenities Car-parking Entertainment Leadership Our model predicts that micro factors explain up to 37% of variation in footfall

Partnerships have 64 % of potential influence they could have (losing 13.3% footfall) Spatial RESULTS from #HSUK2020 towns

“..lively, diverse, intense cities contain the seeds of their own regeneration…”