Retailing, sustainability and neighbourhood regeneration

Retailing, sustainability andneighbourhood regeneration

Michael Carley, Karryn Kirk and Sarah McIntosh

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has supported this project as part of its programme ofresearch and innovative development projects, which it hopes will be of value to policymakers and practitioners. The facts presented and views expressed in this report are,however, those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Foundation.

© Joseph Rowntree Foundation 2001

All rights reserved.

Published for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation by YPS

ISBN 1 84263 049 0

Cover design by Adkins Design

Prepared and printed by:York Publishing Services Ltd64 Hallfield RoadLayerthorpeYork YO31 7ZQTel: 01904 430033; Fax: 01904 430868; Website: www.yps-publishing.co.uk

Contents

PageSummary v

1 Local shopping, climate change and social inclusion – not so strange bedfellows 1Shops at the heart of neighbourhoods … neighbourhoods at the heart of sustainabledevelopment 1Aims of the project 3Neighbourhoods and retailing: to the fore in the policy agenda? 3Methods of the study 4Case studies 6Outline of the report 7

2 Environmental and social trends influence local shopping 8Climate and cars 8Driving to the shops 8Trends in retailing 9Shopping and social inclusion 10Summary of trends in retailing and transport 11

3 Key lessons and issues 13Key lessons of success 13Retail strategy issues 13Regeneration strategy and design issues 16Environmental issues 21Organisational and social issues 22Management and training issues 23Issues of concern to local authorities 24Use of rate variation as a tool of policy 24

4 Refurbishing existing local shopping centres and high streets 26Existing local shopping precincts 26Existing local parades of shops 34Existing high streets 39Existing market hall 47

5 Starting over – new shopping areas within integrated regeneration initiatives 50New local high street 50New shopping centres 52New shopping centre plus new high street 58

6 The lessons of a regional shopping centre 63A major regional centre on a brownfield site 63

7 Conclusion: a strategic approach to retail regeneration 68Retail strategy in planning 69Retail strategies at neighbourhood and district level 71

Notes 73

References 74

Appendix 1: Blueprint for a local retail analysis 76

Appendix 2: Retail food formats – a guide 79

iv

Retail vitality and sustainability in the

neighbourhood

Local shopping centres, with their communityfacilities, libraries, surgeries and pubs are at thesocial and physical heart of neighbourhoods.This is especially true in regeneration areas,which tend to have a strong sense of communitybut where many residents are among the almostone-third of British households without a car.

Retail and transport trends haveundermined the viability of local shopping inmany areas. The advent of large superstores andshopping malls, the consolidation of 70 per centof retail food spend by large multiple retailersand preference for car-based shopping havemeant that more than 60,000 small shopsdisappear every decade. The trend to car-basedshopping contributes to traffic congestion andincreased air pollution and CO2 emissions,which undermine quality of life andGovernment’s commitment to promotesustainable development.

Retail decline is reflected in the dispiritingsight of near-derelict precincts or high streets,with boarded-up shops, which become the focusof anti-social activity. This demoralisescommunities who value public space. Whenshops close, poor households have lessopportunity to drive to alternative facilities.This can contribute to ill health associated withpoor diet. Derelict shopping areas visible topassing traffic contribute to the stigma faced bysuch neighbourhoods.

Their revitalisation, therefore, is crucial tofostering sustainability, social inclusion and arearegeneration. This is a report on retailing inurban regeneration areas, based on 14 casestudies around Britain.

Key issues and lessons

The case studies indicate that there is no simpleanswer to retail regeneration – the solutionswhich work are as divergent as the retailmarketplace and must be tailored to localopportunities. But successful initiatives havesome factors in common:

• attention to the retail marketplace: clearattention to what is possible within theframework of the local or sub-regionalretail marketplace and availablecatchment area, overlaid with strongaspirations to business success andprofitability

• leadership: clear leadership in theregeneration initiative

• involving residents: respect for localresidents’ needs and aspirations

• local vision: a strong, positive vision forlocal quality of life, with the retailstrategy embedded in the localregeneration or neighbourhood strategy

• organisational innovation: controlfrequently delegated from the localauthority to a regeneration company withstrong private sector participation or toan experienced community developmentorganisation

• use of investment: use of public and socialinvestment to reinforce potentialachievement in the marketplace, but notto subsidise marginal schemes

• environment and community facilities:promotion of the locality as a high qualitydestination, and thus footfall, through

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Summary

Retailing, sustainability and neighbourhood regeneration

environmental enhancements andcommunity facilities.

Where projects have been less successful,they have:

• short-term aspirations: that dominatedevelopment planning

• lack of vision and strategy: pursuing ofpartnership without achieving a clearvision and consensus on futureaspirations, and thus a clear, agreedstrategy

• failure to work towards sustainability:ignoring the need to achieve economic,social and environmental objectivessimultaneously, which defines the term‘sustainable’ development.

Many more specific issues are discussed.Among these are the following.

Restore or demolish and rebuild?

An important question is whether to restoreexisting facilities, often the only choice in a highstreet in multiple ownership, or to demolish andrebuild, which is especially important for1960s’-style shopping precincts. Advantagesand disadvantages to both are discussed.

Phasing of regeneration and housing policy

affect retailing

The phasing of regeneration, especiallydemolition of housing in the shoppingcatchment area and the decanting of populationelsewhere, can have a major impact on thecommercial viability of existing retail facilities,especially those operating at the margins ofprofitability. Housing policies and regeneration

programmes, which tend to concentrate thelowest income households in ever fewer estates,also have a negative impact on retail vitality onthese estates. Too often, in the case studies, thedemolition of a shopping precinct or market hasmeant the loss of local retailers who go out ofbusiness, retire or relocate elsewhere in the city.But some initiatives have fostered local retailvitality through business support and advice, orby making transitional arrangements duringregeneration.

The role of community, health and social

facilities, and public space, in creating vibrant

shopping centres

The best neighbourhood and district centres,lively and with ample footfall, combine retailprovision with a range of community and healthfacilities, including libraries, healthy livingcentres, employment centres, education andtraining facilities, and so on. The social focus isa complement to the retail focus, and bothreinforce the sense of destination and ‘place’which underpins retail vitality and servescommunity needs.

Meeting market needs for retail space

Successful initiatives provide shop units ofappropriate sizes to both market and retailerneeds, ranging from market stalls, to smallkiosks, to giant superstores. All can have a roleto play. Small units, such as kiosks, can serve aslow-risk ‘stepping-stones’ into the retailmarketplace for budding local entrepreneurs,especially if marketing advice and businesssupport are available.

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Summary

Extension of catchment area beyond the

locality

There are real economic and social advantagesin increasing the catchment area. One approachis to physically reorganise facilities, so that theyare visible, attractive and appear a secure,pleasant destination to passing non-residents.Another is to develop a shopping centremarketing strategy, which builds on a particularmarket niche. Successful marketing strategiesare cited, which can represent joint effort ofretailers and the local authority.

Vulnerable position of traditional market halls

If these are within covered structures, they maybe unsound and require major investment thatis not available. One option is to let the marketrun down to the point of closure; another, if theland is valuable, is to close the market and sellon the land, thus realising a capital receipt.

Either way, the market does not survive.Given the historic role of such markets in Britishretailing, there is case for ‘listing’ to preservetheir function.

Local employment benefits

Although there is little sound evidence ofwhether new retail development creates newemployment, or merely displaces it, a significantfinding is that in some cases where retailers setout specifically to provide employmentopportunities for long-term unemployed localresidents, they were successful in doing so. Thissuggests that training and employmentschemes, with strong retailer commitment, havereal potential to contribute to reduction ofunemployment, particularly as the ‘sequential’land-use test makes inner city and brownfieldsites more attractive to large retailers.

Improving environmental benefits and

fostering good urban design

The best refurbished and new developments notonly improve retail vitality but also contributeto quality of life in the neighbourhood byenvironmental improvements, historic buildingrestoration, creation of quality public space, useof public art and development of communityfacilities such as healthy living centres.However, too many developments still achieveretail vitality at the expense of quality urbandesign. This is particularly the case withshopping centres dominated by car parks,which turn their back on the neighbourhood forsecurity reasons. The report calls for urbandesign guidance to improve the quality andsustainability of development.

Failure to embrace broader needs for

sustainability

The contribution of CO2 emissions from trafficto climate change is now accepted.Unfortunately, many of the initiatives exploredin the case studies achieved retail vitality byattracting yet more car-borne shoppers, withincreased flows of traffic seen as a mark ofsuccess. This is not an issue resolved only at thelocal level. The report argues that, if nationalobjectives of reducing CO2 and other emissionsare to be met, at a time when traffic volumes arestill increasing, national targets need to betranslated into regional and local targets, andthat every development should include anassessment of CO2 implications and promotesustainable transport modes: walking, cyclingand public transport.

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The case studies

Case studies were selected to represent a rangeof development challenges, includingrefurbishment of existing local shoppingprecincts, parades of shops, high streets andmarket halls (Chapter 4); and demolition andrebuild of shopping centres and evenconstruction of new high streets and markethalls (Chapter 5). A final case study looks at alarge shopping mall on brownfield land. Thecase studies were also selected because eachinitiative has made significant achievements inretail regeneration. As such, the 14 case studiesprovide a wealth of information on goodpractice. Each case study identifies ‘points ofinspiration’ or best practice but also ‘constraintson regeneration’, which are areas of lack ofachievement or unresolved issues.

Conclusions and recommendations

The report concludes that more strategicapproach to retail revitalisation would extendand further enable the retail achievements andgood practice documented in the case studies,and help local stakeholders overcomeconstraints.

Recommendations include the following.

• National planning guidance: planningguidance should be enhanced to fosterstrategic retail planning at the regionaland development plan spatial levels, andset out the factors of analysis whichenable retail trends, transport and landuse planning options and the need tobalance town centre, and district andneighbourhood, function at a time ofcontracting opportunity for smaller,

independent retailers. An appropriatebalance of retail function in prosperousand deprived areas should receiveattention, by making the sequential testyet more sophisticated. PPG 6 should givegreater emphasis to the social impact ofthe location of new retail development,particularly superstores andsupermarkets.

• Regional planning guidance (for England,and its equivalent for Wales and Scotland)should integrate need for retail vitalityand area regeneration within a broadercontext of sustainable developmentincluding integration of transport andland use. The need to reduce CO2

emissions by planning should also featurestrongly in guidance. The need toconsider parking charges at most retaillocations, in and out of town, should beconsidered, including the opportunity tohypothecate parking revenues tosustainable transport modes.

• Local authority development plans: the‘hierarchical’ framework for retailingwhich enables sequential testing shouldbe further developed to encompasssupport for regeneration, and the role ofdistrict and neighbourhood centres insocial and economic life. Localauthorities’ development plans shouldencompass retail analysis and 20-yearforward strategies for retail location andenhancement.

• Neighbourhood/district retail strategies: thedecline of local retail viability and vitalityshould be managed and countered within

viii

Summary

the context of both top-downdevelopment planning and local, bottom-up retail development strategies, whichencompass residents’ social andenvironmental aspirations. Forums asproposed by PAT 13 would take forwardthis activity, but they need to concentrateon articulated strategy or they will beseen as ‘talking shops’.

• Local authority liaison officer on retail

enhancement: every local authorityconcerned about the quality of retailing inand out of regeneration areas wouldbenefit from designating an officer todevelop intelligence and competence inthis area. The officer would be availableto assist local retail development

ix

partnerships with retail assessment andstrategy, to monitor retail viability andvitality, and to promote the case for retailarea enhancement within planning andeconomic development processes.

• Retail development within context of

Community Planning framework:partnership ‘fatigue’ suggests asimplification of organisationalarrangements and a straightforwardmeans for stakeholders to interact withthe local council. The emergingCommunity Planning framework, at theneighbourhood or area level, provides agood context for achieving localinvolvement in retail revitalisation.

1

Despite phenomenal growth in numbers ofhypermarkets and out-of-town centres over thepast ten years, retail and transport trends havecontributed to a decline in shoppingopportunity for the almost one-third of Britonsliving in households without cars, or who aretoo infirm to drive, many of whom are indisadvantaged neighbourhoods. This reinforcessocial exclusion and ill health associated withpoor diet. It also supports a continuing shift tocar-based shopping which has majorenvironmental impacts, such as increasing thetransport contribution to CO2 emissions – at atime when control of the greenhouse gaseswhich contribute to climate change is a pressingchallenge.

Car-based shopping also contributes to thedecline of shopping areas in localneighbourhoods as households with cars travelfurther afield, often to shopping centres withparking for 6,000 cars or more. Some decliningshopping environments are in regenerationareas where large amounts of public funds areattempting to reverse decline, but lack of‘joined-up’ policy and weak strategic planningmean there has been little co-ordination over thelocation of large retail facilities between localauthorities, themselves sometimes in intensecompetition for inward retail investment.

Much of the policy focus in retailing hasbeen on city centre vitality, clearly an importantissue. But receiving less attention are thethousands of district and local retail centresoutside of prime city centres and designatedregeneration areas, many of which are in

decline. At a time when major environmentaland personal health benefits could be gainedfrom shifting millions of short car journeys towalking, cycling and public transport, andwhen social benefits could be gained fromstrong neighbourhood centres, allowing localretailing to decline undermines the potential ofthe sustainable development of Britain’sneighbourhoods.

Retail decline is reflected in the dispiritingsight of high streets with boarded-up shops, ornear derelict precincts on estates. This makes lifedifficult for households on low incomes, as theyare reliant on local supermarkets and cornerstores rather than on superstores or out-of-townsupermarkets (Robinson et al., 2000). Retaildecline demoralises communities who valuepublic space; shopping areas are the focus ofcommunity life and the location of libraries,surgeries, pubs and community organisations.The dereliction of shopping areas visible topassing traffic contributes to the stigma faced bydeclining neighbourhoods.

Shops at the heart of neighbourhoods …

neighbourhoods at the heart of sustainable

development

Locally, whatever their condition, shoppingcentres are commonly viewed by residents as atthe physical and social heart of theirneighbourhood. Nationally, efforts to achievesustainable development and social inclusionare now putting neighbourhoods at the heart ofpolicy implementation, for example, through

1 Local shopping, climate change and

social inclusion – not so strange

bedfellows

2


the National Strategy for NeighbourhoodRenewal and the Community Action Plansrequired by the Local Government Act 2000.This local focus for achieving national policyobjectives is reflected in the Prime Minister’srecent attention to local ‘liveability’ as a key toquality of life. It is an appropriate perspectivebecause sustainable development at theneighbourhood level has been described as thefoundation of national sustainability – in ‘achain’ of local, citywide, regional and nationalefforts only as strong as its weakest link (Carley,1999). And it has long been recognised thatsocial inclusion is only achieved by linkingbottom-up and top-down effort.

A general challenge to sustainabledevelopment is that rhetoric is yet to bematched by sufficient achievement on theground, even though Local Agenda 21 (LA 21)has now been with us for almost a decade.However, its record has been described as‘marginal, institutionally and in terms of effects’(Cameron, 2000). Given that the LocalGovernment Act puts sustainability explicitly atthe centre of local policy and implementation,an important task therefore is to seek outinnovative solutions which are being ‘tested’ inpractical developments in localneighbourhoods. In terms of neighbourhoodretailing, this is a focus of this study.

Although the condition of many local retailcentres is pressing, it is within regenerationareas that the worst problems, but alsoinnovative solutions, can be found. This isbecause of committed public investment, formalattention to regeneration strategy and the manypartnerships already operating in everyregeneration area. These partnershiparrangements are instructive because the use of

partnerships as a means of governance isspreading – into planning for the whole localauthority, into the Community Planninginitiative and the recent requirement for LocalStrategic Partnerships, and into retailenhancement, with the Business ImprovementDistricts recently proposed by the PrimeMinister. The link between partnership andretail strategy needs to be understood, forpartnership and strategy are two sides of thecoin of local regeneration (Carley et al., 2000a).

This, then, is a report on retail revitalisationin urban regeneration areas, based on 14 casestudies around Britain. The research takes anintegrated perspective across three policysectors: retail vitality and viability;1 socialinclusion and area regeneration; and sustainabledevelopment. The latter is particularly withregard to the relationship between transport, airpollution and climate change, but also withconcern for the local environmental and urbandesign impact of retail developments.

A number of local retail revitalisationprojects are addressing at least some of theseissues. There are some real success stories inincreasing the availability of shopping provisionfor local residents, in extending catchment areasto foster retail vitality, and in providingregenerated physical and social communitycentres which are a hub for regeneration andwhich link new shops to refurbished socialfacilities such as libraries, health centres,community cafés and offices for communityorganisations. These successes, but alsolimitations in regeneration achievements,particularly in failure to integrate or achieveenvironmental benefits from retail regeneration,are reported in the case studies in this report.

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Local shopping, climate change and social inclusion – not so strange bedfellows

Aims of the project

The aim of this project is to further understandingof the potential for retail revitalisation schemes tocontribute to social inclusion and localsustainability development by:

• studying a range of attempts at retailregeneration in disadvantagedneighbourhoods in the form ofcommunity shops, precinct and highstreet renewal, and new shopping centreand high street developments,documenting the successful and lesssuccessful characteristics of projects fromsocial, environmental and economicperspectives

• understanding the conditions underwhich retailers will invest in regenerationareas

• assessing potential directions for localaction, such as local retail strategydevelopment, which, combined withchanges in national policies, includingplanning policy, could achievesimultaneous benefits in regeneration andsustainable development.

Neighbourhoods and retailing: to the fore

in the policy agenda?

A number of policy threads are coming togetherwhich may potentially influence retailing inlocal neighbourhoods. At best, these offer a realchance to establish a participative framework oflocal action and empowerment which could,over some decades, foster healthier localneighbourhood centres, and thus the sustainabledevelopment of neighbourhoods and cities

themselves. At a more general level, this couldcontribute to enhanced local democracy andsocial inclusion.

At the core of this policy agenda are the nowexplicit responsibilities of local authorities inEngland to promote the social, environmentaland economic well-being of communities, andto develop community strategies in partnershipwith local residents (DETR, 2000). Hopefully,these will not be as weak as most LA21 plans.Community strategies should include localretail strategies based on a retail audit. Thecondition of local shops may be a good startingpoint for the development of communitystrategies, because it is an issue of concern tomany people from all walks of life. Options forretail strategies based on practical developmentsare described in the case studies of this report,with a suggested audit framework given inAppendix 1. At the local level, communitystrategies may be supported by Local PublicService Agreements, which set out aims andresponsibilities for public service provision.

Local retailing in some areas will also besupported by the proposed BusinessImprovement Districts (BIDs), announced bythe Prime Minister in April 2001. BID zones willbe designated and in those areas, if a majority ofcompanies agree, a company will be formedunder joint ownership of local businesses andthe local authority. The establishment of BIDswill require legislation and they may be a fewyears off. It remains to be seen if they will bedesignated outside of city centres, or if they willhave legal authority to raise capital loans forsubstantive development projects.

Although, as the case studies willdemonstrate, much innovation can be put intrain locally, support at the city-wide, regional

4


and central government levels is also important.At the strategic or local authority-wide level, theformation of Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs)can serve not only to bring residents andretailers into the strategy process, but also tosupport neighbourhood plans with broaderpolicy. For example, if public investment is to betargeted to shopping in regeneration areas, thenother initiatives, such as Unitary DevelopmentPlans, may need to support regenerationovertly. Local retail strategies linked to localplans could be a vital component of theregeneration framework. These local planningframeworks would then need to be supportedby planning policy guidance and by appealdecisions taken by the Secretary of State.

At the regional level, development plans byRegional Development Agencies, and regionalplanning guidance prepared by GovernmentOffices, ought to support not only retail vitalitybut also sustainable development in all forms. Itremains to be seen if they will do so, and if theseefforts will be integrated to form a coherentregional framework. Currently, there is nostatutory requirement for local plans to conformwith regional planning guidance, or for issues ofsustainable development to be integrated witheconomic development strategies. At a nationallevel, neighbourhood interests will berepresented by the Neighbourhood RenewalUnit at the Department of Transport, LocalGovernment and the Regions (DTLR), which isintended to disseminate good practice fromplace to place.

Finally, it is important to note that, as morepartnerships in LSPs and BIDs are proposed,there is concern over ‘partnership fatigue’associated with too many local partnershipssapping available human resources. Partnership

rationalisation is therefore important, both atlocal authority and neighbourhood level. There isevidence that local people prefer one overallpartnership which deals with most aspects ofquality of life and which provides a single gate toinstitutional stakeholders, particularly the localauthority. Decentralisation initiatives in manylocal authorities, linked to Best Value provisionand service quality, can play an important role instreamlining local participation so that it iseffective and does not contribute to partnershipfatigue. If decentralisation is genuinelyempowering, public investment will have acommunity-led focus that ought to cause morejoined-up policy and practice. It could alsoencourage public sector interventions, whether inplanning or regeneration, that systematicallyinfluence the direction of market-led retailing toengender not only retail vitality but alsosustainable development and social inclusion.

Methods of the study

The project began with desk research of relevantliterature, documented in the references,followed by selection of case studies indesignated regeneration areas – followingadvice from a telephone survey of expertinformants. The criteria for case study selectionwas to pick initiatives which, although notperfect, had made significant progress inachieving retail regeneration, and wouldtherefore allow learning to be unlocked aboutthat process and constraints on it. A set ofcriteria for examination of the case studies wasdeveloped, reflecting the project’s three-foldconcern for retail, social and environmentalissues. A summary of the criteria is presented inTable 1.

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The project’s fieldwork consisted of: two tothree site visits to the 14 case study areas; anaverage of 12 one- to two-hour face-to-faceinterviews with participants in each of the casestudies, including regeneration managers, localgovernment officers, shopkeepers and retailmanagers, community representatives and otherstakeholders; a small number of focus groups

with local residents/shopkeepers and localgovernment officials. Finally, there were face-to-face interviews with development policymanagers from major food chains, retailspecialist chartered surveyors, retail investmentcompanies and retailers’ organisations such asthe National Retail Planning Forum.

Table 1 Main criteria for assessment of case studies

Issues Criteria

Retail • Has the development process restored retail viability and vitality to the area?• Has the range of shops and/or product lines available increased?• Have existing retailers/stallholders been protected during the regeneration

process?• Is the intended catchment area appropriate to the scale of retail provision?• Does the development assist local entrepreneurship in the retail sector

through business support and/or premises?• What innovation is demonstrated in fostering retail regeneration?

Social • Have local residents, particularly the unemployed, gained training andemployment benefits from the development?

• Has retail development been linked to the development of premises forsocial, health and voluntary organisations to create a lively, multi-usedestination?

• Has the development strengthened local community organisation(s)?• Has the development process contributed to the asset base of the community?• How have issues of crime and anti-social behaviour been addressed?

Environmental • Has there been an effort to foster use of sustainable transport modes: walking,cycling, public transport?

• Has there been attention to the need to reduce vehicle emissions, such asCO2?

• Does the development demonstrate high quality urban design, and make apositive, sustainable (long-lasting) contribution to the area?

• Does the development indicate concern for recycling, including of premisesand building materials?

• Is the environment of the centre managed in an effective manner?

Partnership • Have local residents had the opportunity to be active participants in theregeneration process?

• Has the full range of appropriate stakeholders been included?• Are there particular points of innovation in the contribution of the private

sector to regeneration?

6


Case studies

The case studies have been selected to give arange of types of local regeneration initiatives,including refurbishment and new build ofshopping centres and even high streets, and alsoinitiatives aiming for differing spatial scales incatchment areas: local, sub-regional andregional. They also range across inner city,peripheral estate and a former industrial town

Table 2 List of case studies: ‘Refurbishing existing local shopping centres and high streets’ (Chapter 4)

Location Description

Existing shopping precinctsMuirhouse, Edinburgh Refurbishment of a precinct of retail and social facilities in one of

Edinburgh’s most disadvantaged areas. The former centre includesa new community library and arts centre with garden.

Castlemilk, Glasgow Estate centre refurbishment anchored by a food retailer in one ofScotland’s four flagship regeneration areas. Includes new ‘kioskshops’ to encourage local retail initiative.

Castle Vale, Birmingham Housing Action Trust initiative including rebuilding of a shoppingcentre by J. Sainsbury, providing 400 new jobs. Includes nursinghome, community restaurant, arts programme and an anti-crimestrategy.

Existing parades of shopsLongley Estate, Sheffield A resident association initiative to renovate local shops, create

employment and capture local spending, including community-owned shop, café, welfare advice and health project.

Bradbury Street, Hackney Shopping street regeneration, café, managed workspaces andinnovative kiosk initiative by non-profit organisation to encouragestart-up and sustainability of local retail businesses.

Existing high streetsUpperthorpe, Sheffield In an inner city area, regeneration of local shopping centre including

healthy living centre and library.

Ferndale, Rhondda In former coalmining town, a major community centre/cinema in asignificant church, renovated by a community development trust.

Green Street, Newham Including both high street and market, in an ethnically diverseneighbourhood, growing from a local centre to a specialist Asianshopping destination with a regional catchment area.

in the Rhondda Valley. Case studies were alsoselected because each has an element ofinnovation and success, which could inspireand/or be replicated elsewhere. Notsurprisingly, each case study had limitations aswell, and these have been documented and willalso inform discussion of issues in the nextchapter. The chapter numbers referenced inTables 2, 3 and 4 are for this report.

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Table 2 List of case studies: ‘Refurbishing existing local shopping centres and high streets’ (Chapter 4) (cont’d)


Existing market hallBorough Market, Southwark Revitalisation of a market established in 1756 by a Development

Trust administered by trustees who live or work in the localneighbourhood.

Table 3 List of case studies: ‘New shopping areas within integrated regeneration initiatives’ (Chapter 5)


New high streetCrown Street, Glasgow Regeneration initiative in the Gorbals to create a new but traditional

urban neighbourhood including owner-occupied homes, socialhousing and new shops.

New shopping centresPennywell, Sunderland In Sunderland’s most deprived area, complete rebuilding of the

estate’s 15-unit shopping centre linked to new neighbourhoodfamily support centre.

Seacroft, Leeds Rebuilding of a district shopping centre. Includes Tesco New Dealinitiative to invest in inner city locations and to link retailing toemployment creation.

New shopping centre plus new high streetHulme, Manchester Retail regeneration including a new superstore supporting new

market hall and high street.

Table 4 List of case studies: ‘Regional shopping centre’ (Chapter 6)


Braehead, Renfewshire A major regional centre on a brownfield site, includingconsideration of the impact on nearby Social Inclusion Partnershipareas.

Outline of the report

The next chapter describes key environmental andsocial trends that provide the context for retailrevitalisation in local neighbourhoods. Chapter 3draws on the case studies to discuss the keygeneric issues and lessons of retail revival in urban

regeneration areas. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 discuss thecase studies, giving for each a synopsis and listing‘points of inspiration’ where things have workedwell, as well as ‘constraints on regeneration’,which are limitations of the retail regenerationprocess. A concluding chapter documentsrecommendations to arise from the analysis.

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Shopping, social inclusion and climate change:joined-up governance is essential to multi-facetedchallenges of sustainable development that arecharacterised by dynamic interaction betweeneconomic, social and environmental factors. Thisthree-way relationship is at the heart of mostdefinitions of sustainable development (Carleyand Christie, 2000). Understanding global andlocal trends that influence retailing is vital tofashioning appropriate solutions. This chapterexamines those trends.

Climate and cars

Evidence for the planet’s changing climate,sometimes called global warming, is nearlyincontrovertible, thanks to continuing scientificanalysis by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panelon Climate Change (Houghton, 1997). Newevidence for this disturbing phenomenonemerges daily, from shrinking glaciers tochanges in the seasons. A main cause isgreenhouse gases, so called because they reflectthe sun’s heat back onto the planet, instead ofallowing it to radiate into space. This ‘re-radiation’ warms the atmosphere.

A major culprit is the gas CO2, of whichmore than a quarter of emissions come frommotor vehicles. The Government is committedto reducing CO2 levels by 20 per cent on 1990levels by 2010.1 On current trends, just tostabilise these emissions at present levelsrequires drastic action to cut back what has beencalled ‘automobility’ (Carley, 1992). Theprospects are not good: vehicle ownership anduse are rising, in a country that has one of thehighest rates of vehicle take-up of road space in

the world (Carley and Spapins, 1998). Furthertraffic growth of 32 per cent by 2010 ispredicted; with a possible 69 per cent increase invehicle numbers in the UK by 2025 (The Times,26 March 2001, p. 13). The Government’s besthope is that it can reduce the rate of growth butnot alter its upward trend.

Driving to the shops

Many of these car journeys in Britain are toretail premises: superstores, shopping malls,outlet ‘tin sheds’ along the motorway and so on.Parking provision for 6,500 cars at a mall is notuntypical, with a single mall generating ninemillion vehicle trips per year. Even a modestsuperstore will generate 1.5 million vehiclemovements per year.

Changes in retailing have brought economicbenefits and social impacts, including on traffic.There has been a polarisation of retail activityaway from neighbourhood shopping streets andparades into city centre and out-of-town,purpose-built locations. In the latter, 95 per centof shoppers arrive by car (Carley, 1996). From avery low base in 1980, out-of-town shopping willaccount for a third of all retail sales in the UK by2005 (verdict cited in The Independent, 24 March2001). Such out-of-town sales increased by 6.4 percent in the year 2000 alone and are expected togrow by 34 per cent over the next five years.

Car-borne shopping has become a way oflife. This contributes to the decline ofneighbourhood and district centres, reinforcedby other trends. For example, shopping areasthat have a catchment with a decliningpopulation, typical of regeneration areas, find it

2 Environmental and social trends

influence local shopping

9

Environmental and social trends influence local shopping

even more difficult to remain viable.This report explores case studies in such

areas which have suffered economic, social anddemographic decline, but which have managed,against the odds, to increase the catchment forlocal shops. But it is not entirely ‘win–win’ froma sustainability point of view. In areas desperatefor inward retail investment, more traffic equalsmore customers. This is too often seen as a goodthing.

Car-borne shopping is not a way of life forhouseholds without cars: poor, inner cityresidents; residents of peripheral estates; andthose from former industrial villages miles fromthe shops and connected by infrequent publictransport. Return bus fares to the supermarketof £5 are not uncommon. Where no publictransport exists, or a mother is burdened with apram and shopping, an expensive taxi may bethe only option.

At a national level, as Table 5 shows, of thepoorest 30 per cent of all households, more thanhalf have no car and, in the poorest decile, only

18 per cent of households have a car. Overall,there are around 6.9 million households inBritain without a car, around 30 per cent of thetotal number.

Trends in retailing

In part, car-borne shopping has beenencouraged by consolidation in the retail sectorinto fewer, larger shops – multiple food retailersas a whole having more than 70 per cent of themarket. There is further consolidation on thecards, with the introduction by big chains ofboth smaller- and larger-format stores, but alsoby buying out small competitors, such as nearbychemists, and then replicating them in-store.

One outcome is that independent retailerssuffer a relentless decline with 60,000 shopsclosing every ten years. For example, thenumbers of independent grocers fell from 116,000in 1961 to only 20,900 in 1997 (Select Committeeon Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs,1999). A similar change has taken place in thecomparison sector where a large proportion ofoutlets are owned by a small number ofcompanies. The economies of scale offered bythese large companies have made them morecompetitive. These facts are salient for arearegeneration practitioners, who must work withthe marketplace to promote social inclusion.

As small retailers close, more people have to,or want to, drive to large stores to meet theirdaily needs. For some, this represents a freedomof choice in shops, product range and prices,which is seen as a boon of modern life. This typeof shopping has been encouraged by the fact ofmore women working, with less time to shop,growing rates of car ownership, increasedownership of freezers and microwave ovens.

Table 5 Non-car-owning households by decile of

gross income

Decile % households withno vehicle ownership

Lowest income decile 81.8Second 72.9Third 51.5Fourth 34.4Fifth 23.7Sixth 14.1Seventh 10.6Eighth 6.3Ninth 4.3Highest income decile 2.5

Source: Family Expenditure Survey, 1995–96.

10


Modern retailing is a two-edged sword – wemay decry the trends, such as traffic growth orthe spread of shopping malls, but many of usenjoy the benefits, including a decline in the realprice of food of 9.4 per cent from 1989 to 1998(Monopolies Commission, 2000).

Nor are the trends all one-way. Retaillocation policy has shifted since the early 1990s(Carley, 1996). There are now attempts to rein inout-of-town shopping, which has given rise topolicy guidance on retailing (PPG 6) andtransport (PPG 13), which emphasise in-townshopping over out-of-town locations in a‘sequential test’ (see also Ecotec Research andConsulting and Transportation PlanningConsultants, 1993; House of CommonsEnvironment Committee, 1994).2 But mostpolicy research has been concerned with out-of-town shopping vis-à-vis city centre vitality,rather than with neighbourhood shopping orarea regeneration (see, for example, Chase et al.,1997; Hillier Parker, 1997; The Independent,1998a, 1998b; URBED, 1994).

Planning permissions ‘in the pipeline’ meanthat the policy impact has been weak with shed-type hypermarkets and ‘factory outlets’ openingfrequently. A single company, Freeport Leisure,opened three-quarters-of-a-million square feet ofout-of-town space in 1999 (Colliers ErdmanLewis, 1999). In September 1999, Boots, long achampion of in-town locations, announced that itwas bowing to market pressure and opening 160new out-of-town stores (The Independent, 1999a).

Retail policy has become the focus of intenseinterest with the purchase of Asda by theAmerican out-of-town giant Wal-Mart, whosemarket capitalisation is ten times that of itsnearest UK competitor, with turnover of $130billion per year. Wal-Mart’s global buying

power brings lower prices, identified by thePrime Minister as of potential benefit to low-income households, but at the price of theerosion of retail function in surrounding areas(The Independent, 1999b). American researchsuggests that Wal-Mart’s expansion in thedecade 1986–95 resulted in the closure of 7,326shops in the United States (The Observer, 1999).But investment by large supermarkets can alsobe a driver of regeneration, as reported in anumber of case studies here.

The employment impact of newdevelopments is also a matter of concern, without-of-town proponents arguing that new jobsare created, and in-town supporters suggestingthat jobs are merely transferred or that thenumber declines as smaller shops go under (see,for example, Boots the Chemists, 1998; EDAWfor Tesco, 1999; London Economics, 1995;National Retail Planning Forum ResearchGroup, 1997; Townsend et al., 1996). This isimportant as retailers frequently cite the jobcreation benefits of new developments, but withlittle or no analysis available of the number ofjobs lost in shops and market stalls closed. Somecase studies in this report suggest employmentbenefits for local, unemployed residents arepossible from retail investment, if the process iseffectively managed.

Shopping and social exclusion

There are many people who have less chance toenjoy the benefits of modern retailing and yetwho frequently suffer the costs. These includethe 30 per cent of less well-off householdswithout access to a car, and vulnerable peoplesuch as elderly persons and child pedestrians.The closure of small shops and other trends in

11

Environmental and social trends influence local shopping

transport, such as buses caught in traffic jams,contribute to the social exclusion suffered bypeople who have to make do with poorshopping and high prices.

The restructuring of retail activity over thepast two decades has not taken into account theimpact of this process on disadvantagedneighbourhoods. It has been market-led, withmobile consumers with high spending powerhaving had the greatest influence over locationdecisions. Improved retail facilities, particularlysupermarkets, have drawn the affluent shoppersaway from disadvantaged neighbourhoods,threatening viability of the remaining stores andreducing the service for the residents unable totravel. The lack of local shoppers discouragesinvestment, contributing to decline, which mayadd to the disparity in health between rich andpoor. For example, Acheson’s inquiry intopoverty and ill-health found that a characteristicwhich distinguished deprived from prosperousneighbourhoods was a dearth of shops supplyingquality food at reasonable prices (Acheson, 1998).Access to nourishing, affordable food is anobvious prerequisite for sustainability.

Some retailers are said to exploit theirmonopoly position in neighbourhoods whereincome and car ownership are low. However,the British Retail Consortium argues thatretailers are:

… caught up in the same circle of decline insocially vulnerable areas together with schools,doctors’ surgeries and other important amenities.It is a chicken and egg argument whether declineis accelerated by the demise of shops or whethershops close and leave because it becomesincreasingly difficult to make a living.(Ann Robinson, quoted in The Independent,3 February 1999)

Deprived areas have not been a target forretail investment because of the lack of availablespending power of the residents and the stigmaof the areas limiting the catchment population.However, an exception has been discountsupermarkets, which see these areas as a nichemarket – particularly if they can achieve lowset-up costs. A recent development is thatrestrictions on the availability of suitabledevelopment sites because of tightening ofplanning control are directing large retailers toregeneration areas. Seacroft Green in Leeds is acase in point.

While improved retail facilities, especiallysupermarkets, offer considerable benefits toresidents in disadvantaged urbanneighbourhoods, many of the advantages arebased on the ability to buy in bulk. Smallhouseholds and people on restricted incomesmay not be able to afford these offers especiallyif they have poor food storage facilities.

Summary of trends in retailing and

transport

Trends in retailing and transport which cancontribute to the social exclusion include thefollowing (Carley, 1996):

• Shift to larger retail outlets and closure of

smaller shops: between 1990 and 1995, thenumber of independent bakers fell by 32per cent, grocers by 22 per cent andbutchers by 10 per cent. Local tradersneed only 10 per cent erosion of custom totrade at a loss.

• Shift to out-of-town shopping: with 70–90per cent of out-of-town trade‘cannibalised’ from existing retail centres,

12


and around 95 per cent of out-of-townshoppers arriving by car.

• Consolidation of market share: majorretailers have wholesale buying powernot available to independents, makinglocal shops expensive by comparison.

• Decline of bus services: fall-off of busridership of 22 per cent between 1985 and1995, found by the Commons SelectCommittee on Transport to be an outcomeof deregulation, with a further fall of 2.5

per cent between 1996 and 1999. Thismakes routes to marginal, low-incomecommunities less viable, causing fares toincrease and route infrequencies (Bonnel,1995).

That these trends have influenced prospectsfor local retailing is obvious, but the influencesare mixed, as Table 6 demonstrates. Thishighlights the complexity of solutions to thechallenge of achieving social inclusion andsustainability in retail regeneration.

Table 6 Supermarkets in regeneration areas: no one right answer?

Advantages Disadvantages

Can kill off traders that have been valuedmembers of the local retail community for manyyears.

A large supermarket will not be local to all theresidents. Housing over 300 metres away from astore is not considered to be within walkingdistance. With contraction of other retailers,distance to nearest store may be increasedwhich will disadvantage the more vulnerablesuch as the elderly, disabled and youngmothers.

Damages employment levels in stores andmarkets put out of business.

Widened catchments attract more car traffic intoarea, reducing environmental quality andcontributing to air pollution.

Danger of community becoming over-dependent on one store.

If located in a poorly designed site, customersmay drive to the supermarket and drive awaywithout making use of any other shops orfacilities in the neighbourhood.

Offers cheaper food and household goods, anda range of in-store shops such as chemists,newsagents, fishmonger, etc. Cheaper foodcould reduce food poverty.

Offers a wider choice of goods within thecommunity itself, rather than at a distancewhich may require expensive journeys.

Provides valuable employment in new store.

A widened catchment area fosters retail vitalityand supports the increased product rangeavailable to local residents.

Investment gives confidence to an area and canreduce or even do away with stigma.

If located in well-designed retail centre, candraw in customers and increase footfall, whichcan benefit a range of other shops. Can bringmodern facilities and high qualityenvironmental improvements to an area.

13

If there is a lesson to arise from the 14 casestudies, it is that there is no one right answer asto how to achieve retail regeneration. The casestudies are notable for their diversity ofapproach – for example, similar 1960s’ precincts,demolished in Leeds and Sunderland, havebeen refurbished in projects in Edinburgh andGlasgow. One case study, Seacroft Green,includes a 110,000 square feet superstore;another, Bradbury Street, has little kiosks whichprovide a low-risk entry point into the retailsector for budding entrepreneurs.

Key lessons of success

Whatever their diversity, where retailregeneration initiatives are successful, they havefactors in common, including:

• attention to the retail marketplace: clearattention to what is possible within theframework of the local or sub-regionalretail marketplace and availablecatchment, overlaid with strongaspirations to business success andprofitability

• leadership: clear leadership in theregeneration initiative

• involving residents: respect for localresidents’ needs and aspirations

• local vision: a strong, positive vision forlocal quality of life, with the retailstrategy embedded in the localregeneration or neighbourhood strategy

• organisational innovation: controlfrequently delegated from the localauthority to a regeneration company with

strong private sector participation or toan experienced community organisation

• use of investment: use of public and socialinvestment to reinforce potentialachievement in the marketplace, but notto subsidise marginal schemes

• environment and community facilities:promotion of the locality as a high qualitydestination, and thus footfall, throughenvironmental enhancements andcommunity facilities.

Where projects have been less successful,they have:

• short-term aspirations: that dominatedevelopment planning

• lack of vision and strategy: pursuingpartnership without achieving a clearvision and consensus on futureaspirations, and thus a clear, agreedstrategy

• failure to work towards sustainability:ignoring the need to achieve economic,social and environmental objectivessimultaneously, which defines the term‘sustainable’ development.

The remainder of the chapter examines inmore detail key lessons and issues suggested bythe achievements and limitations of the casestudies.

Retail strategy issues

Retail viability and vitality lie at the heart ofretail regeneration. Public subsidy cantemporarily support initiatives, for example, by

3 Key lessons and issues

14


release of land at below market cost or bycapital investment in environmentalimprovements, but subsidy can provide only ashort-term boost to retail viability. Ultimately,shops stand or fall in terms of profitability in themarketplace, and the health of shopping areasrests on the combined health of their shops.Each of the case studies details the ways andmeans that regeneration initiatives havesupported retail viability by:

• providing shop units of appropriate sizesto both market and retailer needs, rangingfrom market stalls in Hulme, to smallkiosks in Castlemilk and Hackney, togiant superstores, such as at Seacroft

• providing a quality environment

• increasing footfall through location ofsocial and community facilities in theshopping area

• marketing, such as for Green Street.

Extension of catchment area

Beyond serving an existing catchment area, anumber of case studies have demonstrated theadvantages of increasing catchment. There arethree ways to do so. One approach is toreorganise retail facilities, so that they arevisible, attractive and appear a secure, pleasantdestination to passing non-residents. This is theapproach taken at Hulme, where the new foodsuperstore was located on a busy main roadleading from the city centre to the suburbs.Access needs to be obvious and straightforward,and car parking secure.

A second approach is to complement theabove with provision of retail facilities that fillunmet market opportunities. This usually

involves developing a larger superstore, servinga sub-regional catchment. This is the approachtaken by Tesco at Seacroft and J. Sainsbury atCastle Vale. In both cases, the retailerscommitted themselves to providingemployment benefits to residents, who alsoappreciate the larger-format stores available tothem.

Developing a marketing strategy

Another means of increasing catchment is todevelop a marketing strategy. At one level, suchas for new shopping centres, this is aboutpublicising their arrival. But a more sophisticatedapproach is required for existing, if revamped

Seacroft Green in Leeds, with an extended

catchment, represents a major investment in a

stigmatised area and a source of local employment.

But the increased flow of cars to such developments

raises environmental concerns.

15

Key lessons and issues

facilities. This is the case for the Borough Marketand for Green Street. Because of decline in itswholesale function, Borough Market isreinventing itself as a quality farmers’ market,and has organised food fairs, theatre events and awebsite to promote its new position.

At Green Street, the marketing campaignrepositions it as a significant regionaldestination for Asian goods. This involved theuse of Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) fundsspread over seven years for marketing, co-ordinated by a council officer with experience inmedia and visitor promotion working with localtraders’ associations. The innovative use ofadvertising is described in the case study.

While not every retail destination can defineunique characteristics such as Green Street’slarge number of Asian shops, it demonstratesfour points. First, that any destination whichfinds itself in decline needs to think strategicallyabout its options, and secure professional adviceas necessary. Second, that any factor that candistinguish a retail destination, such as afarmers’ market, or specialist ethnic foods, oreven local architecture and ‘café culture’, canfoster retail vitality if marketed carefully to anappropriate audience. Third, that regenerationfunding can be used successfully for marketing.Fourth, that marketing (as at Green Street) andpromotion (as at Borough) can be bothsuccessful and fun. Fifth, that local councils canassist retail regeneration with provision ofexpert marketing advice.

Using kiosk units as stepping-stones into the

marketplace

Many initiatives provide premises for mainlychain retailers; fewer encourage localentrepreneurship. At the opposite end of the

spectrum from the superstore, Castlemilk andBradbury Street demonstrate that small retailpremises in the form of kiosks can provide anopportunity for business start-up. BradburyStreet’s ten kiosks provide a starting point forretailers without commitment to the high rentsand rates which frequently undermine retailstart-ups. The kiosks consist of prefabricatedunits. Rents are around £55 a week, with aninbuilt ‘failure clause’ which allows tenantswhose business isn’t working successfully to getout quickly before debilitating debts areincurred. Conversely, if businesses do well,owners can ‘stepping-stone’ into the commercialworld by renting shops available from the samenon-profit organisation.

Supporting vulnerable retail businesses

Business support for vulnerable and aspiringlocal retailers is a logical feature of the BradburyStreet initiative which could be emulatedelsewhere. Prospective tenants of their shopsand workspaces make their business plansavailable to small business experts prior toletting. These are vetted with a requirement todemonstrate that necessary market research hasbeen done to give a reasonable chance ofsuccess. For the letting period, additionalsupport is available. This helps business ownerssecure market position, review investmentoptions and head off financial difficulties.HCD’s (Hackney Co-operative Developments)record in the development of businesses thathave ‘moved on’ to commercial premisesindicates the benefits of the approach.

Vulnerable position of traditional markets

Case studies suggest a vulnerability oftraditional markets. They are frequently much

16


appreciated by nearby residents for their lowprices and good value. However, if they arewithin covered structures, those structures maywell be unsound and require major investmentwhich local authorities do not have available.One option is to let the market run down to thepoint of closure; another, if the land is at allvaluable, is to close the market and sell on theland, thus realising a capital receipt for the localauthority. Either way, the market does notsurvive. Given the historic role of such markets,there is a case for ‘listing’ to preserve theirfunction. Street markets, on public right ofways, are less vulnerable.

Regeneration strategy and design issues

Refurbishment or demolition?

A major decision is whether to refurbish existingfacilities, or demolish and rebuild. Whereproperty is in single ownership, such as a localauthority-owned shopping precinct, or just afew hands, both are options. There areadvantages and disadvantages, discussedbelow.

For example, existing centres have beenretained at Muirhouse and Castlemilk. On theother hand, Seacroft and Pennywell areexamples of demolition of property mainly insingle ownership, on the same site in the former,and near the previous site in the latter.Conversely, where there is multiple ownership,as in parades of shops at Upperthorpe orSouthey Avenue, or in a typical high street suchas Ferndale, refurbishment is usually the onlyrealistic option. Compulsory purchase can alsobe used to ‘buy out’ long leases of shopkeepers,as at Seacroft.

Retention of existing shopping precincts

Communities in regeneration areas frequentlyhave a strong sense of community spirit, andresidents may have a lingering affection for thelocal shopping area. This is especially truewhere it is the social gathering point and focusto an estate, where crime and disorder are not atsuch levels as to make the centre unviable, andwhere numbers of residents have not declinedprecipitously. In these cases, such as Muirhouse,the first choice of residents may be for retentionof an existing centre, even though its initialdesign may be unsuitable for currentrequirements. However, compared todemolition, retrofitting a shopping precinct and

Kiosk unit at Bradbury Street, Hackney provides

local entrepreneurs with a low-risk entry into the

retail marketplace with a modest, but commercial,

rent and business support.

17


keeping it operational during the processrepresents a major challenge.

Advantages to retention includecontinuation of existing social spaces and asense of continuity for residents during theupheaval of regeneration. These spaces,compared to modern shopping centres, arefrequently permeable, that is, they are easilyapproached on foot from around theneighbourhood. Retained centres are alsofrequently surrounded by social facilities, fromlibraries and job centres to offices of localcommunity organisations.

Retention can also help safeguard viability ofsmall, independent retailers, and market stallswith modest turnovers, whose businesses tendnot to survive the lengthy transition to newexpensive premises. In a number of cases ofdemolition, such as Seacroft and Hulme,informants expressed concern over smallbusinesses disappearing during regeneration.

There are also constraints in retention,particularly relevant to 1960s’-style precincts:poor design, poor structure and ‘non-defensible’space. Outdated designs can be difficult toretrofit. The overall centre or individual unitsmay be of unsuitable size for the existingmarketplace – this can mean vacant units whichare a drag on repositioning the image of astigmatised neighbourhood.

Internal arrangements may also beunsuitable. In both Muirhouse and Castlemilk,for example, while shops facing outward areeasier to let, shops facing onto enclosed arcadesremain difficult to let. These internal spaces arealso difficult to clean. Outdated structures alsopresent problems, with common complaintsincluding structural deterioration and leakyroofs. There are also problems with poor

delivery arrangements from lorries, which nowtend to be much larger than when the centreswere built.

Finally, retained shopping centres tend topresent difficulty in improving public safety andminimising the influence of substance abusers.This is because these centres tend to have more‘nooks and crannies’, which are difficult to police.Existing centres are more likely to retain pubs,which, while serving positive social functions,also attract persons whose behaviour isincompatible with needs of shoppers. The casestudies do demonstrate that proactive shoppingcentre management can reduce these problems.

Demolition and rebuild as an option

A number of case studies involved rebuilding ofexisting centres including Pennywell, Seacroftand Hulme, and Crown Street, which recreateda neighbourhood shopping environment ofshops under new, tenemental flats. Althoughthere are disadvantages in terms of loss of acommunity’s physical centre, there are majoradvantages to this approach.

The first is that outdated, stigmatisedshopping areas are swept aside in one go,replaced by new premises suited to the currentretail environment. At a minimum, this hasmeant premises which are easier to maintainand police, and which have a layout andbalance of unit sizes appropriate to the market.In Crown Street, this has been achieved in thecontext of the re-creation of a traditional urbanneighbourhood well suited to its inner citylocation. The shops in turn have made the newsocial rented and owner-occupied housing moreattractive, contributing to repopulation of theneighbourhood and to objectives of income andtenure diversity of residents.

18


Important from a retail perspective,Pennywell, Seacroft and Hulme have allbroadened their catchments, improvingviability. Pennywell, for example, has created anarea-wide destination from what was a small,decrepit centre, with a car park busy withvehicles coming into an estate which a few yearsago was considered the ‘car crime capital’ ofEurope.

In addition to vitality, there are otheradvantages to rebuilding. First, local residentshave access to bright, clean shops and a broaderproduct range. Second, as volumes of customersincrease, public transport can become moreviable. Seacroft, for example, is a hub of busroutes, not only into Leeds but also to outlyingtowns. This increases accessibility for non-car-owning residents. Third, retail centres can gohand-in-hand with community facilities, whichincrease footfall and community benefits. AtPennywell, the new health and communitycentre attracts a stream of residents to the firstlocal doctor and dental surgeries to be openedin many years, as part of a healthy living centre.At Seacroft, Tesco, working closely with the

local training centre, is providing more than 240jobs.

There are some disadvantages. In Pennywelland Seacroft, the standard of urban design tendsto be poor, producing no more than American-looking, suburban-style shopping centres. Bothare ‘L’-shaped designs, which are dictated bythe anchor retailer, and the main feature isshops facing a car park. Both centres resolutelyturn their backs on the surroundingneighbourhood, appearing more like fortresses,with rear sides impenetrable to residents whomust walk around to the car park to enter.However, the design makes both car andshopper security more viable, so the trade-offmay be considered acceptable. But, if higherstandards of urban design were applieduniformly to all shopping malls, greater flows ofbenefits could be achieved without diminishingretail viability or shopper security.

Shopping parade and high street

revitalisation

Where a high street is the historic centre of aneighbourhood or a parade of shops in multiple

Parade of shops restored from a near-

derelict condition by a neighbourhood

organisation in Longley, Sheffield. A

community-owned shop is

complemented by a new café, offices

for local organisations and private

businesses.

19


ownership is not easy to rationalise,revitalisation is often the preferred option. Thecase studies indicate that retail vitality can bereinforced in existing high streets but thisremains a challenge, given retail trendsdocumented earlier. In this sense, local highstreet revitalisation (as opposed to city centre)represents a major national challenge, in that,for every high street improving its retailfunction, there are thousands of others indecline.

Case studies at Longley, Upperthorpe,Bradbury Street and Ferndale demonstrate howconcerted effort can support retailing, linked tocommunity facilities, business support and‘place marketing’, in the context of a multi-dimensional regeneration strategy. Anothercommon factor is that, in each initiative, a non-profit community organisation leadsregeneration.

An exciting redevelopment option is thecreation of a whole new high street. This hasbeen undertaken in Crown Street, Glasgow andHulme, Manchester. Crown Street serves mainlya local catchment, with a new shopping streetand mixed tenure housing development withintraditional city streetscape patterns. The result isa new ‘urban village’.

Hulme is also unique, in that a new highstreet, just under construction, is ‘anchored’ by anew food superstore in a small mall, whichfaces a main road. The physical ‘bridge’between mall and the parallel high street is acovered and open marketplace. As in Glasgow,shops in the high street will be at street levelwith three- and four-storey flats over. Althoughthe case study questions the urban designquality of the mini-mall, and its car dependence,Hulme nevertheless represents an innovative

approach to new facilities, to broadenedcatchment and to linking mall development tothe concept of a new high street.

Phasing of regeneration and housing policy

The phasing of regeneration, especially demolitionof housing in the catchment area and the decantingof population, can have a major impact on theviability of existing retailing, especially shopsoperating at the margins of profitability. Housingpolicies that concentrate low-income households inever fewer estates also have a negative impact. Toooften, the case studies show that demolition of ashopping precinct has resulted in the almostcomplete loss of retailers who go out of business,retire or relocate elsewhere.

New, high quality townscape created on brownfield

land at Crown Street, Glasgow. New shops are

under traditional tenemental-style buildings, with

careful attention to streetscape.

20


Regeneration programmes that wish toretain existing retailers need to consider theimpact of the phasing of housing demolitionand other aspects of regeneration. In CastleVale, for example, attention was paid toretaining retailers and easing the transition forcommunity organisations located in theprecinct. This included the construction of a‘transition block’ attached to the new shoppingcentre, offering lower rents than the new centre,for businesses that could not afford higher,proposed rents, and a transfer location forcommunity organisations.

The role of community, health and social

facilities

The best neighbourhood centres, lively and withample footfall, combine retail provision with arange of community and health facilities,including libraries, healthy living centres,employment centres and so on. The social focusis a complement to retailing, and both reinforcethe sense of destination and ‘place’ whichunderpins retail vitality and serves communityneeds. At Muirhouse, for example, a new arts

centre and garden, and new library, provide asocial dimension greatly appreciated by localresidents. At Pennywell, the new centre sharesits site with a healthy living centre, whichprovides services never before available in theestate. At Green Street, a communityeducational facility in a refurbished historicbuilding run by the local college is an importantlocal destination facing the high street, andserving social needs. The same is true of arenovated chapel at the heart of the high streetin Ferndale. Finally, Bradbury Street providesworkspaces above shops, which increase theflow of people in the area.

The quality of public space is also important.Green Street has not only widened its pavementsand provided seating areas for shoppers, it hasalso commissioned local people, young and old,to prepare pavement mosaics. Bradbury Streethopes to take this a step further, by creating anew civic square in Hackney. On the other side ofthe coin, some developments, such as at Seacroft,have created little in the way of quality public orsocial space, and their retail achievement,although substantial, seems limited by this.

Community and Health Resource

Project next to the Pennywell

Shopping Centre brings a range of

community benefits, including the

first on-estate surgery, and increases

footfall for the centre

21


Environmental issues

Improving environmental benefits

Most of the case studies report localenvironmental improvements, some of highquality:

• new building and quality urban design(Crown Street, Bradbury Street)

• restoration of historic (Ferndale, GreenStreet, Borough Market) and otherbuildings (Upperthorpe, Longley andBradbury Street)

• improved streetscape (Green Street,Crown Street)

• new market hall (Hulme)

• innovation in retail facilities (kiosks atBradbury Street and Castlemilk).

Good new developments contribute to thequality of urban neighbourhoods, discussedbelow. Aside from their social benefits, recyclingof old and historic buildings saves substantialamounts of ‘embodied’ energy involved inbuilding demolition and construction.

Fostering good urban design

Good urban design is vital to sustainability,particularly for inner city neighbourhoodshoping to redress population decline andconvince potential residents that higher densityurban living can mean a high quality of life.Most impressive from an urban design point ofview are the new neighbourhoods in CrownStreet and Hulme. On the other side of the coin,the middling quality of urban design in somenew shopping centres is also noted, derivingfrom security requirements, particularly for

shoppers’ cars, and from a perceived need byretailers to keep costs down by use of commonsite development patterns, store envelopes andservicing arrangements around the country.

Comparison of the best and the mostmediocre of building and site designs, and thenational perspective of the retail food chainsthat control 70 per cent of the market, suggeststhat national retail site design guidance wouldbe of benefit in improving the general quality ofretail development. This could be prepared onbehalf of DETR and used as a tool of planningpolicy in assessing retail planning applications.There is no reason why the quality of urbandesign for new retail premises and sites cannotbe substantially improved to the level of thecountry’s better designs. Not to do so leaves alegacy of mediocre buildings and tin sheds,many of which could still be with us in 50 years.Although it is appreciated that retailers,particularly discount retailers who servedisadvantaged communities, want to opt forleast-cost developments, it is also the case thatany guidance that applies to all retailers acrossthe board will have only relative effects.

Expanded catchments and nil achievement of

traffic reduction and CO2 emissions

Although fewer, larger stores with expandedcatchments clearly generate retail vitality, theseexpanded catchments are always predicated onattracting car-borne shoppers from furtherafield. This contributes to the unhealthy cycle ofmore car use, more pollution and so on. Aglaring omission in initiatives documented hereis signal failure to make any attempt to reducetraffic volumes or to address the issue of theincrease in CO2 emissions and other pollutantscaused by the very success of developments

22


predicated on more cars bringing moreshoppers. Indeed, as noted in the first chapter,the poor quality of most public transportreinforces the common perception that car use isthe sine qua non of a prosperous lifestyle andthat retail vitality and increased car use have togo hand in hand.

A few local authorities are making an effort,Manchester’s and Sheffield’s trams being a casein point. Seacroft has a busy bus station locatedimmediately in front of the new Tesco. Althoughthese demonstrate that some things can be donelocally, for most initiatives, car use is not anissue which can be resolved at the local level.Under current conditions, and despite theintentions of PPG 6, local action to stemincreases in car use can only disadvantage retailregeneration – where car use for shopping isencouraged by investments in new roads,inadequate alternatives and by failure toaddress the issue of lack of parking charges atshopping malls. Changes can only come fromnational commitment and policy:

1 to establish targets for national CO2

reductions that can be applied at regionaland local levels

2 to link transport and land use decisions toenergy policy to work towards thosetargets and to provide a spatialframework for local action

3 to establish a system of environmentalimpact assessment for retaildevelopments

4 to have a concerted national effort toimprove public transport, and makewalking and cycling an alternative, sothat car use is a less favoured option.

Organisational and social issues

Quality of partnership

Most of the cases reviewed here involvedpartnership between council, retailers,developers, training organisations, residentsand other stakeholders. Considerable researchhas been done on partnership and these lessonshold here (Carley et al., 2000a). However, somepoints stand out.

Retail revival is a specialist area, requiringmarket knowledge and ability to respondquickly to fluid market conditions. This meantthat an effective partnership model was one inwhich the local authority was an equal partnerrather than lead agency. In partnershipsintending large retail premises, and majorinvestments, supermarkets and/or developersplayed a significant role in decision processes intwo ways.

The first was confined mainly tospecification of physical requirements whichallowed premises to be rented quickly. This isimportant because quick rental is tangible proofof regeneration and reduction of the stigma thatdogs many of these areas. Beyond this, althoughmany retail partners provide valuable advice,they tend not to be deeply interested inpartnership processes, preferring to focus onretailing. Castlemilk and Muirhouse areexamples. For many retailers, it is unreasonableto expect much in the way of activeinvolvement.

The second type of involvement is active rolein partnership, leading to a broader range ofachievements including employment benefits,as at Seacroft and Castle Vale. In the latter, thesupermarket also plays a significantmanagement role in the retail centre. In

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Castlemilk, the centre owner has played themajor role in its regeneration, investing nearly£5 million pounds in what was one of Scotland’smost deprived estates. This is in accord with theowner’s organisational culture, but they are alsotrading at a profit. It demonstrates what ispossible when owners are encouraged andenabled to become committed.

There is a sense of tension in some largerpartnerships, with retailers and/or developerswho are expected to commit major amounts ofinvestment wanting to call the shots, comparedwith community representatives and existingsmall traders who feel excluded fromdeliberations dictated by market considerations.The best solution appears in the structure ofpartnership, which provides a substantive rolefor community organisations to participate andlearn about the ‘ins and outs’ of developmentoptions, and to make their views known. It isalso important that local authorities, andcommunity and training organisations, are in aposition to work together to ensure thatdecisions on retail investments also produce aflow of benefits to the local community. Aneffective chairperson of the regenerationpartnership will ensure that all stakeholdershave a sense of inclusion in discussion anddecision making, which then represents aconsensus on strategy.

Larger regeneration partnerships, with majormulti-functional programmes, tend to operatemost effectively through retail sub-groups, whichenable specialist expertise to be applied asnecessary. Almost always, an organisationalmechanism evolves which allows the partnershipto operate at arm’s-length, and in a more focusedfashion, than local authority decision structuresnormally allow. North Edinburgh Area

Regeneration, Hulme Regeneration and Pride inPennywell are examples.

Management and training issues

Managing for public safety

Public safety and anti-social behaviour are vitalissues for many initiatives discussed here. Thesolutions tend to be straightforward. Litter andgraffiti need to be cleaned promptly. InPennywell, for example, the local council agreedquickly to a twice-a-day litter clean-up when itbecame apparent that once a day was notenough. At Muirhouse, the shopping centremanagement is able to call out specialistcontractors to remove graffiti on a daily basis.

For security, CCTV is a favoured option, butthe lesson is that it must be monitored andprovision must be made for addressingproblems as they arise. This requires financeand proactive management. In Pennywell, itwas found that security personnel needed to beavailable on a 24-hour-per-day, seven-day-per-week schedule to meet requirements.

Training and local employment

A significant finding is that, in the few caseswhere retailers set out to provide employmentopportunities for the long-term unemployed,they were successful in doing so. This suggeststhat employment schemes have potential toreduce unemployment, particularly as the‘sequential’ land use test makes inner city,brownfield sites more attractive.

A key lies with employers working closelywith a local, experienced training organisationand other stakeholders, including theEmployment Service, providing training,literacy and numeracy courses and child care, as

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necessary. Seacroft, Hulme and Castle Vale arecases where employment benefits are reported.At Braehead, there were less employmentbenefits than anticipated, despite the size of thedevelopment, because of the slow response ofthe public agencies involved. This was related tothe development’s location on brownfield landon the border of a number of jurisdictions withdiffering boundaries.

The emergence of the service sector as a majorsource of employment in the 1990s suggests thatmore local authorities should look to job creationfor the long-term unemployed as an element inretail development on brownfield sites.

Issues of concern to local authorities

Phasing of attention to retail decline

Despite the relative success in retailregeneration reported here, the likelihood is thatthese cases are exceptions rather than the rule.For every regeneration programme, there areother shopping centres slipping into decline –almost inevitable given the retail trendsdocumented earlier. There is concern thatregeneration programmes are ‘too little, too late’in targeting mainly areas which have alreadyexperienced significant decline and when thetask is then very substantial.

Although action by local authorities ondeclining retail areas outside of regenerationareas may be limited by resources, anappropriate response is to monitor retailviability in neighbourhood and district areas.Early action to counter decline could then betaken while it is cost-effective to do so,following, for example, from the type ofinitiatives used successfully in Green Street,Bradbury Street and other locations; and used

successfully in city centre managementinitiatives (Boots the Chemists and Civic Trust,1996). Within the context of communityplanning, local organisations could also beempowered to do more to help retail vitality,working with shopkeepers to enhance theshopping environment.

At the level of the local authority, retail andneighbourhood centre improvement strategiescan be prioritised by establishment of ahierarchy of shopping areas and responses totheir development needs. This is the approachthat is being taken by Rhondda Cynon TaffCouncil which has Objective 1 status and aforward planning framework for retailimprovement among other developmentoptions. It has established three levels of retailfunction and is devising support andparticipation plans applicable to each level. Thelocal community development trust in Ferndale,working with the local councillor, is anticipatingthis opportunity and has requested funding toundertake its own forward planning and retailenhancement study. This is important, not onlybecause such a study is being undertaken, butalso because local people and traders with localknowledge are both inputting to the study andtaking subsequent ownership of it. Discussionswith shopkeepers in Ferndale suggest pent-updemand for local participation, but also theneed to re-establish and support a local traders’organisation.

Use of rate variation as a tool of policy1

Rates are at best a minor issue for larger retailersand national chains who build costs into pricingstructures and offset variations betweenlocations. However, for small retailers in

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regeneration areas and elsewhere, the level ofrates is an important consideration in retailviability. Some businesses in this studyquestioned why they should pay the same ratesas premises located within wealthy areas.Others felt that some opportunity for taperingrates would provide small businesses with anopportunity to start up on a healthy footing.Similarly, the introduction of a ‘rates holiday’when a business is in trouble was seen to bepreferable to being forced out of business whenunable to meet combined rent and ratesdemands.

The Green Paper Modernising Local

Government discusses provision of rate relief indeprived areas, suggested in the Urban TaskForce report. This recommended that smallbusinesses would be entitled to rate reductionswith the cost being met through the nationalrate pool rather than having to be funded byindividual authorities. The potential for raterelief was also reviewed in PAT 13. While itsupported rate relief as a way to sustain shopsin deprived areas, it noted that rents andconsequently rates were often already low insuch areas. Relief might therefore have limitedimpact on market viability. However, profitmargins for local shops in regeneration areas areoften very low so even modest relief could makea difference between a shop remaining orclosing. Reduced rates could also help nurturerentals in vacant shops.

There is precedent in an existing rate reliefscheme for village shops and post offices in

rural areas, implemented in 1998. This gives 50per cent mandatory relief for any sole generalstore (selling food) or post office in settlementswith a population of less than 3,000 and with arateable value of less than £6,000. Localauthorities have the discretionary power toincrease the rate relief to 100 per cent and toallow relief to any other business in suchsettlements considered vital to the community.This is subject to a rateable value of £12,000.Central government funds the full cost of themandatory rate relief and 75 per cent of thediscretionary relief. The purpose is to protectthe last providers of essential services inisolated rural communities.

Research suggests that the mandatory raterelief scheme is working (Local GovernmentAssociation, unpublished). Local authorities areexperiencing more difficulties administering thediscretionary scheme, particularly wherepreference has to be given to one business overanother. This difficulty would likely increase inurban areas where there is a diverse range ofbusinesses and overlapping catchment areas.

Research demonstrates that there is arelationship between changes in business ratesand rents and that increases in non-domesticrents result in lower property rents (Institute forFiscal Studies, 1995). Similarly, the value of raterelief may be offset over time by rent increases.This raises the concern that benefits of rate reliefwould tend to be short term and erode overtime, as the market adapts to differentconditions and costs.

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4 Refurbishing existing local shopping

centres and high streets

Key points

• Step-by-step approach to task of reinforcing a neighbourhood centre important to residents.• Better security to address tension between shoppers and substance abusers.• Vulnerability of the centre’s retail vitality and regeneration programme from proposed

nearby development of large supermarket.

Synopsis

As well as an important retail facility, the shopping centre is a social hub for the community.Responding to residents’ aspirations for improving the existing centre, rather than demolition,the initiative is making progress against constraints, which include the challenge of retrofittinga 1960s’-style precinct, multiple ownership and little market opportunity to establish a widercatchment in an area well provided with large supermarkets. In urban design terms, theexisting centre remains accessible from all sides, with a new library, arts facilities andcommunity business centre.

Existing local shopping precincts

MUIRHOUSE SHOPPING CENTRE, EDINBURGH

Refurbishment of 1960s’ local shopping precinct on Edinburgh peripheral estate.

The shopping centre was constructed in 1968 ona new estate consisting of tenements and high-rises. There is major investment in new socialhousing and low-cost homes for sale. Althoughpleasantly overlooking the sea, the estate wassynonymous with social problems, especiallysubstance abuse, providing the location for thefilm Trainspotting. Muirhouse sits within GreaterPilton, home to around 16,000 persons.Regeneration is carried out by North EdinburghArea Regeneration (NEAR), a long-standingpartnership.

The shopping centre, serving a localcatchment, remains in council ownership, butwith a long head lease of the retail premises (butnot the public areas) to the estate developer, theBoland Group. The centre consists of 30 retailunits, with a supermarket, pub and four-storeyflats above the shops. Although these provide

custom, they also make refurbishment difficultbecause shops’ walls provide support to thestructure above. Around four-fifths of the retailunits are occupied and there is still reasonabletrade for a baker, fruiterer, butcher, chemist, off-licence, hair salon, takeaways and otherbusinesses.

Historically, the centre traded on a healthybasis until the mid-1980s, for food andconvenience goods but also fashion and shoes.This latter type of retailer started closing in thelate 1980s. The result, according to Boland, wasloss of a ‘critical mass’ of shop numbers andvariety, and footfall. Retail viability also sufferedfrom demolition of surrounding housing unitsas part of regeneration, which reducedhousehold numbers in the catchment, and froman increasing concentration of poor households,causing decline in average annual income.

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Refurbishing existing local shopping centres and high streets

The refurbishment process started in 1994when residents identified the centre’s poorcondition as a concern. For professionals,demolition seemed an option. However, aresidents’ survey found strong allegiance to thecentre, particularly for households without cars –alternative shops being out of walking range. Thecentre is said to be a ‘collective corner store’. Halfof residents questioned used Muirhouse as theirmain food shopping centre. Many identifiedbarriers to increased use as substance abusersand dirty, rundown appearance.

A decision was made to retain the existingcentre – to provide continuity for residents andtraders during improvement. The designsolutions included enclosing a pedestrianisedoff-street mall with a roof/entrance portico, treeplanting, new pavements, new road link andangle parking to encourage passing trade.Organisationally, a Muirhouse Shopping CentreManagement Association has been established,of stakeholders including NEAR, the Council,Boland Group and representatives of residentand tenants’ associations with the police in anadvisory capacity.

The shopping centre is being refurbished in ajoint venture between the public sector andBoland. Other investments include a new library,a community arts centre and café, andcommunity business centre. The refurbishments,about one-half completed, have improved retailviability in the areas of the centre facing the streetbut, in the ‘mall’, there are still vacant units. Oncethe mall has lockable doors and a regular9.00 p.m. closure, the intention is to encouragevoluntary organisations to make use of this area.One unit is let to an IT skills centre, set up by thelocal college in association with Deutsche Bank.

Points of inspiration

• Reinforcing a neighbourhood centre: localresidents felt the existing centre wasimportant to them and deservedimprovement. In addition to retailimprovements, the initiative is drawingtogether funding streams to cement thisfocus. This includes a proposedCommunity Tower in a hard-to-let blockof flats, being taken forward by theleading community organisation, thePilton Partnership (PP). This will provideshared office premises for voluntaryorganisations currently scattered aroundGreater Pilton. The PP has established acommunity asset managementorganisation, which will take over thebuilding.

• Personal security: a primary task was toaddress loitering substance abusers. Aconcierge system was started, hiring localresidents with training provided free bythe Council’s Housing Department. Aclosed-circuit television (CCTV) systemwas installed, monitored by theconcierges, with the assistance of thepolice. Finally, if problems persist, theCouncil is prepared to consider a by-lawmaking it illegal to consume alcohol inthe centre.

• Taking a step-by-step approach: compared towholesale demolition, retrofitting aprecinct and keeping it operationalrepresents a major challenge. NEAR hastaken a step-by-step approach, trying outinitiatives and gradually improving boththe environment and the trading positionof the shopping centre. In the absence of

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Layout of the Muirhouse Shopping Centre shows the new community facilities clustered around the centre.

opportunity to extend the catchment,footfall is to be increased by concentratingpublic services, voluntary organisationsand start-up businesses.

Constraints on regeneration

• Weak partnership: as for many retailinitiatives, the partnership is weak. Thereis no traders’ association and individualtraders have demonstrated little

willingness to attend meetings.Community representatives, on the otherhand, attend frequently but don’t alwaysfeel decisions go their way. The headleaseholder of the retail shop units isunhappy with the covered mall as adesign solution, which they feel creates apoor quality interior space in a publicright of way. This, they suggest, will be

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difficult to clean and police. They also feelthat the Council’s commitment tocleansing in the centre is less thannecessary.

• Planning and location of competition: thetrading position of the centre’s Kwik Saveis just within the commercially viable but,if planning permission is given for aproposed Asda Wal-Mart nearby, thecentre’s viability could be undermined.Kwik Save suggests that, if this occured, itwould close its Muirhouse store. It isunlikely that any other supermarket chainwould step in. Generally, the Counciladmits that North Edinburgh is close tohaving too many food supermarkets.

• Need for rates relief: both regenerationpractitioners and the leaseholder find itdisturbing that rates are set by referenceto notional rental returns for similar-sizedshops elsewhere in Edinburgh, when‘there is virtually no market for shops inthis location, some of which have beenvacant for eight years’. They feel it is notcost-effective to spend public money onenvironmental improvements when therating structure weakens retail viability inmarginal trading areas. Currently, in theirview, rate demands on the centre make ita negative asset, which they supportmainly because of company goodwill.

CASTLEMILK SHOPPING CENTRE, GLASGOW

Refurbishment, with rebuilding, of local shopping precinct on Glasgow peripheral estate, mainlyfunded by the owner.

Key points

• Private shopping centre operator working with the local community giving goodrelationship between the shopping centre manager and local groups, and affordable rentsrather than vacant units.

• Small kiosk units enliven the entrance and provide low-cost space for local entrepreneurs.• Retrofitting an existing centre with arcade leaves internal areas difficult to let, compared

with visible external shop units.

Synopsis

This 55-unit shopping centre provides the physical and social focal point to a peripheral estatewhich once housed 37,000 persons and is now home to around 12,000. It consists of a coveredcentral arcade surrounded by three outward-facing shopping frontages. The centre is managedby a private company on a long-lease basis, and they are committed to the community. Theyhave recently made substantial investments as part of an overall regeneration programme. In1997, the frontage was demolished and replaced by a new purpose-built food store.Reorganising the space has created a new sense of vitality along this frontage, but internalshopping spaces remain difficult to let.

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Renovated mall at the shopping

centre in Castlemilk, Glasgow with

new kiosk units on the right-hand

side.

Castlemilk was designated one of four ScottishUrban Partnerships in 1988. In its response to anearly strategy, the community-based CastlemilkUmbrella Group (1989) highlighted a number of‘crunch issues’ including the proposal that theexisting shopping centre be considered ‘a towncentre not just a shopping centre’. To meet thisrequirement, the community proposed integratingretail functions with community projects.

A survey found that 96 per cent of residentssaw the development of the shopping centre as akey issue with half citing the shopping centre asCastlemilk’s ‘worst feature’. Although the Councilowned the land, the building is on long-term leaseto a private company, Estates and AgencyHoldings, which also manages the centre. In 1995,Estates and Agency Holdings carried out a £1mupgrading as part of phased regeneration.

In 1997, as part of a complicateddevelopment arrangement involving propertieselsewhere in the city, Estate and AgencyHoldings invested £4.5m in a majorredevelopment involving partial demolition,relocation of the car park to the front of thecentre and development of a new supermarket,

leased to Kwik Save. Funding for New Lifeended in 1995, although the area continued toreceive limited funding as a newly designatedSocial Inclusion Partnership (SIP) area.


• Relationship with the community: the centreoperator markets the centre as ‘for thecommunity’. Its viability is due in part tothe personal initiative of the manager ingetting involved in community initiatives,including health and community safetyinitiatives. In addition, both majortenants, Iceland and Kwik Save, seethemselves as playing a community role,building customer loyalty. Kwik Save, forinstance, works alongside a HealthyCastlemilk project to provide apensioners’ voucher scheme towardswholesome food purchases.

• Business development: the kiosk units haveproved popular with modest localbusinesses looking to set up with minimumoverheads. The kiosks range from 90 to 190sq. ft with rents from a little over £2,000 to

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£4,000 per year. Castlemilk EconomicDevelopment Agency (CEDA) is on hand tooffer business advice to start-ups.

• Management and security: the centre has itsshare of shoplifting and ‘undesirableshanging about’ but the introduction ofCCTV cameras with 24-hour security hasreduced problems to manageableproportions. A commitment to immediateremoval of graffiti has proved a deterrent.Although the local chemist is part of themethadone programme, a potentiallynegative impact is minimised by thechemist’s decision to serve a manageablenumber of clients and close liaisonbetween chemist and GPs.

• Affordable rents: the centre operator iswilling to negotiate on rent levels,offering ‘tapered’ rents or rent-freeperiods, which is seen as a tactic to reducerates needing to be paid on vacant unitsand with service charges offsetting rentlosses to an extent. These agreements arenegotiated independently of the lease by‘side letter’ and are not transferable.


• Design: the original centre was developedin the 1960s and is considered to be ofpoor design, requiring considerableretrofitting to make it workable.Development of the kiosks opposite themain shopping parade has given vitalityto this area. An arcade, however, hasstruggled to attract rental interest withretailers moving out as fast as they movein. The two major food retailers, locatedat the more viable front, have not helpedto generate footfall in the arcade.

• Loss of business due to redevelopment works

and uncertainty: when first built, the centretraded well and included a number ofnational chains such as Woolworth’s andBoots. However, given that there wereearly plans to demolish the centre,retailers were allowed to break theirleases to minimise compensationpayments. Declining local population,high rates of unemployment and growingsocial problems meant that, in manycases, it was only the lease that heldoperators. Growing uncertaintysurrounding the future of the centrediscouraged many retailers fromcommitting to operation in the centre.

• Persistence of stigma: the centre’s operatoremploys letting agents to attract retailers.Although there has been some success,there is still much to do in overcoming‘the black name of Castlemilk’. Withoutincreasing the catchment to shoppersfrom outside the area, the limitedspending power of local residents meansthat attempts to introduce morecompetition, and hence choice forconsumers, negatively impacts onexisting businesses’ viability.

• Lack of community facilities: while recentinvestment in leisure facilities hasbenefited footfall, lack of other culturaland community facilities within thecentre undermines its status as a ‘towncentre’. The Partnership is currently innegotiations with the centre managementover utilisation of the vacant and upperarcade units for community use.

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Key points

• J. Sainsbury a full partner in regeneration, committed to local employment benefits; 33 percent of jobs going to local unemployed residents.

• Shopping centre turned ‘inside out’ so it faces a main road. Its attraction to passingcustomers increases catchment, footfall, vitality and the range of facilities available toresidents.

Synopsis

A depressed, stigmatised and inward-looking precinct has been transformed into a lively retail andcommunity centre led by a Housing Action Trust (HAT) in partnership with a major supermarketoperator.

CASTLE VALE, BIRMINGHAM

Redevelopment of a 1960s’ precinct, with new superstore, retail centre, public square and communityfacilities.

Castle Vale is the largest post-war estate inBirmingham, with a population of 11,000. It wastransferred to a Housing Action Trust (HAT) in1994. The HAT then embarked on a regenerationprogramme involving construction of 1,100 newhomes and refurbishment of 900 other properties.

While housing improvement was the initialgoal, regeneration of the area’s 1960s’ shoppingcentre was also within the scope of the HAT.Alongside concern over public safety, half ofresidents identified poor shopping and poorimage of the centre as problems. When the HATwas established, 30 per cent of the centre’s 42retail units were vacant. Shortly after, thecentre’s key anchor, Kwik Save, moved out.

One problem with the existing design wasthat the centre was inward looking, had noidentifiable frontage from the nearby mainthoroughfare and was therefore unable to attractpassing trade from neighbouring affluent areas.Turning the centre around substantiallyincreased footfall and ensures a good range ofshops for local residents.

The HAT secured freehold to the site in 1996,which it then sold on to J. Sainsbury withincome from the sale ploughed back intoregeneration. Throughout the redevelopment,the HAT attempted to minimise disruption toresidents, traders and community organisationsthat had used the centre. A free bus service ranto the nearest quality shopping area. A numberof existing users were accommodated within a‘relocation block’ constructed by J. Sainsbury.Local consultation was a priority and acomprehensive programme to update residentson progress was implemented. The newshopping centre is said to have helped generatecommunity spirit.

The centre was redeveloped in 1999 at a costof £35 m. – the largest Sainsbury’s investmentoutside London. A 50,000 sq. ft Sainsbury’s storeopened in 2000 attracting 20,000 customers perweek. The scheme also includes smaller retailunits, taken up by existing businesses includinga chemist, post office, solicitors, bookmaker anddental surgery. The scheme contains a healthy

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living centre, and public square and publicartwork, all with CCTV. In early 2001, theTenants and Residents Alliance and a One StopCentre moved in, the latter providingemployment, education and training advice.

Throughout the redevelopment, the HATworked in partnership with J. Sainsbury on arecruitment drive to optimise residents’ chancesof competing for jobs. Originally, Sainsbury’saimed to fill 15 per cent of 420 jobs with localresidents, but the actual number exceeds 33 percent. A training centre was established to helpresidents complete application forms and tests.


• Partnership with supermarket operator: thedecision to appoint J. Sainsbury aspreferred developer was based on thecompany’s willingness to be a partner inregeneration and to create localemployment. The company is representedon the HAT Board and that of the healthyliving centre. Taken together, thisrepresents a real commitment topartnership. Once Sainsbury’s were onboard, they then assumed responsibilityfor filling the other retail units.Transferring responsibility formanagement, security and ongoingmaintenance to commercial ownersensures that there is no outstandingliability against the public purse.

• Recycling of capital receipts: capital receiptsgenerated through the sale of the sitewere reinvested in the regeneration

programme. In addition, a percentagewas top-sliced and invested in acharitable Community Fund to helpsupport voluntary sector organisations.

• Relocation of existing businesses: there isalways a need to balance communityneeds with commercial reality. A numberof traders were relocated into thepurpose-built relocation block, designedto offer more affordable rents and ratesadjacent to the main centre.

• Preferential leasing arrangements for

community users: the HAT negotiated onbehalf of community users to securediscounted rents. A paid HAT officerworks alongside community groups tohelp them achieve their aspirations andsecure realistic funding.


• Countering poor image: difficultiessurrounding negotiations with someexisting traders led to negative publicity,a problem that bedevilled many HATs.Opposition to the scheme was wellorganised and high profile. However, theHAT securing a high-profile anchor storein Sainsbury’s provided a boost to adeprived area whose supermarket hadclosed. This helped dispel the HAT’snegative image. Sainsbury’s use of CastleVale within its own publicity providesexternal validation for the scheme.

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Key points

• Application of community enterprise and use of modest subsidy has transformed shops atthe heart of the estate, encouraging private investment in the remaining shops.

• Physical regeneration provides a base for community initiatives, such as a tool bank andhousing surgery.

• A community-owned food shop trades only at the margin of viability.

Synopsis

A non-profit community company purchased three of five shops in a derelict parade. Theoutcome is a new physical hub for the estate, and a social and economic hub for communityparticipation in the estate’s regeneration.

Existing local parades of shops

SOUTHEY AVENUE, LONGLEY ESTATE, SHEFFIELD

Refurbishment of a parade of largely derelict shops, to give a community-owned store, café andcommunity enterprise centre, and two privately owned shops.

Longley comprises 1,850 houses and is part of abroad band of council estates across north-eastSheffield which are home to 42,000 people. Mostof the estates have suffered from the decline oftraditional industry.The LOCAL Project in Southey Avenue is aneighbourhood regeneration initiative that hasrevitalised a parade of disused shops facing asquare of four greens in the heart of the estate.The aim of the project is to develop and managethe shops to serve both commercial and socialneeds of the community and to provide a focalpoint for regeneration. LOCAL is the LongleyOrganised Community Association Limited, acompany limited by guarantee withmembership open to any resident of the estate.Although a limited company, LOCAL has alsobeen recognised by Sheffield Council as theestate’s tenants’ organisation, which enables itto access a modest tenants’ levy for its corefunding. This required a shift in stance by theCouncil towards recognition of community

frameworks outside of traditional models.Within the project, there is a community

owned and managed LOCAL store, a whollyowned trading arm of the project. LOCAL issupported by Sheffield Council and theSheffield Community Enterprise DevelopmentUnit (SCEDU), itself a community enterprise,which assists small businesses and communityorganisations across the city. SCEDU has amodest financial stake in LOCAL. LOCALevolved out of the residents’ and tenants’association, which needed to establish itself as alegal entity if it was to take ownership of thevacant shops.

The regeneration of the five-shop parade islargely complete. The LOCAL food store is a pilotcommunity-owned retail project operated inconjunction with the wholesaler, Mace, to sellgroceries and rent videos. It provides seven jobs,with profits rolled back into the business. Of thetwo remaining community-owned shops, one is acommunity café with a meeting room and offices

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above. The other is the Four Greens Centre,headquarters of LOCAL but also containing acommunity tool bank for local residents, ahousing advice surgery and community offices,including that of the South Yorkshire HousingAssociation, which provided financial advice andwhich is a local social landlord. Two other retailunits, privately owned, are now lively localbusinesses, one of which is a hardware store andthe other a joinery business. They have beenrenovated following refurbishment of LOCAL’sthree units.

Having accomplished its initial intention,LOCAL is looking to a forward strategy torefurbish the greens linked to establishment of agreen space maintenance enterprise,establishment of a farmers’ market, a wardenedhousing project and development of bettertransport links for the estate. It would also liketo take a role in estate self-management.


• Use of retail refurbishment as a springboard for

community regeneration: the project hasprovided an attractive physical hub for theestate, from a ‘before’ situation of aderelict, boarded-up parade of shops. Italso provides a social focus for communityenterprise. The formation of LOCAL as acompany limited by guarantee providedan organisational means for a communityasset base, beginning with the three shops,to develop its competences in a variety ofareas of enterprise.

• Linkage between shop, café and community-

managed meeting space: there are benefitsfrom these relationships in terms ofordering and use of foodstuffs, andopportunities for LOCAL to shift into

other related commercial areas, such ascatering.


• Viability of the community-owned store: atthis time, the community-owned store isoperating at a small loss on a credibleturnover of around £600,000 per year.This is not unusual – many small retailersoperate near the margins of viability. It isnot yet clear whether the community-owned store will remain a viable retailmodel when it shifts, as it must, to asituation of zero subsidy. It is still findingits feet as of this writing, but, whateverthe outcome, there are already benefits interms of learning about options forcommunity enterprise.

• Relationships with nearby retailers: even asthe launch of the community-owned shoptook place, opened by the Secretary ofState for Education, Radio 4 wasinterviewing nearby shopkeepers whoobjected to the subsidy going into theLOCAL store, which they felt conferredunfair advantage. LOCAL’s argument isthat it broadened the range of goodsavailable to the community and loweredprices, which were too high.Relationships have now evolved, to theextent that LOCAL and nearbyshopkeepers are now exploring thepossibility of group purchasing ofwholesale foodstuffs. And, given thatlocal shops are in intense competitionwith big multiple stores, LOCAL-initiatedprojects, such as the green refurbishment,could benefit all local retailers byincreasing footfall.

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Key points

• Ability of locally based voluntary organisation to deliver retail and workspace premises, andlocal economic and social development.

• Careful management to ensure start-up businesses move to commercial viability, creatingopportunities for new start-ups.

• Resistance of local council to neighbourhood management.

Synopsis

Bradbury Street consists of Victorian shops, managed workspaces, community café and tenkiosk units, which provide retail start-up opportunities with minimum risk. Tenancies arecommercial, at the lower end of market rent. There is an assumption that businesses will moveon, opening up space for new businesses and the support services offered by Hackney Co-operative Developments.

BRADBURY STREET, LONDON BOROUGH OF HACKNEY

In a vibrant multi-ethnic neighbourhood, this is a development of shop regeneration, café, managedworkspaces and a kiosk initiative by a non-profit development organisation.

agreement with Peabody Housing to providesocial housing at the cleared end of the site.HCD found, through competition, acommunity-oriented, architectural firm to takeforward a striking development of 16 retailunits (six shops and ten award-winning kiosks)and 25 workshop and office units opening on tothe side of the structure though a new, smallpublic square.

The demand for retail and workspacepremises is indicated from the waiting list forunits, even though tenants are required to‘move on, with support’ when their businesseseither become profitable or it becomes obviousthey won’t make it in the marketplace.Prospective tenants have their business plansand market research vetted. Leases had been upto nine years, but HCD is drawing back to ‘easyin/out’ two-year, renewable leases for all exceptthe Jazz and Poetry Café, which is on a long-term arrangement. Successful businesses that

Hackney Co-operative Development’s (HCD’s)mission is to encourage the start-up andsustainability of local retail and servicebusinesses in Hackney by provision of premisesat reasonable rents and business support. HCDis concerned to reverse social exclusion bycommunity economic development andfostering neighbourhood governance.

The site of the development is a city blockoff the busy Kingsland High Street. The existing,now refurbished, terrace was derelict as a resultof an aborted regeneration scheme. HCD’s firsttask was to acquire clear title to the site from avariety of owners, and to renovate the housesfor short life, co-operative tenancies.

By 1992, however, renovation of much of theexisting Victorian shopping streetscape, withnew-build workspaces behind, seemedpreferable to demolition. This would make useof a package of regeneration funding. At thesame time, the local authority entered into

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have moved on include a bike shop, ahairdresser, a children’s bookshop and asoftware firm.

On the retail side, the kiosks provide a safestarting point for new retailers wanting to getstarted without commitment to the high rentsand rates that frequently undermine start-ups.The kiosks consist of 30 sq. m. prefabricatedunits, with a folding hatch at the front thatcreates either a window display or counter.There is an inbuilt ‘failure clause’, which allowstenants whose business isn’t working to get outquickly before debilitating debts are incurred.Conversely, if businesses do well, the ownerscan ‘stepping-stone’ into the commercial worldby renting one of HCD’s shops. Currently, kiosktenants include an African art shop, a hair salon,a ‘pound shop’ and a dance music stall.

HCD’s operating principle is that everythingit does must be socially responsible andfinancially sustainable. HCD currently has30,000 sq. ft of commercially viable space as anasset base including a new headquarters, whichalso provides training space for the local college,a theatre group and offices. HCD’s broader roleincludes: identification of community businessopportunities within Hackney’s diversepopulation; implementing training andmarketing projects for clients; and promotinginter-agency partnerships.

As an example of the latter, HCD has nowset its sights on partnership regeneration of thelarge parking area behind the existingdevelopment. A new civic square is proposed,with additional flats, a playground andworkspaces, with HCD working with acommercial developer and the Council. Thepurpose is to demonstrate that the voluntarysector, business and local government can co-

operate to create innovative public spaces andlocal services. In another initiative, HCD isexploring the potential for inter-local businessco-operation to deliver commercial and/orsocial benefits. Joint purchasing arrangementsfor small food retailers is one example; co-operative recycling is another.


• Voluntary organisation delivers: BradburyStreet shows that voluntary organisationscan deliver local physical, economic andsocial regeneration. Shops are let to localretailers and workspaces to newbusinesses – all supported by professionaladvisers.

• HCD as a ramp to business success – but not

a permanent source of subsidy: havingprovided its 41 tenants with theopportunity for a foothold in themarketplace, HCD makes a point ofensuring that it is moving towardsindependence and profitability.Commercial considerations influence rentlevels so that its tenants are operatingwithin a commercial, rather thansubsidised, context, but on a low-riskbasis while they are learning what worksin the marketplace.

• Kiosks as a starting point: HCD’s kiosks notonly provide valuable starter units, butalso, taken together, create a strikingmini-marketplace for the localcommunity. Their modular prefabricationmeans they can be replicated asdevelopments move forward on the newcivic square.

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• IT links tenants and HCD: the workspacesare linked by an intranet networkenabling a full range of electroniccommunications. This in turn providesthese start-up businesses with full accessto worldwide networks.


• Managing anti-social behaviour and public

space: the creation of new public spacebrings with it some responsibility for themanagement of that space to maintain itsquality and the commercial viability. In an

Renovated terrace and shops in

Bradbury Street with the new drum-

shaped ‘jazz café’ under community

offices. The managed workspaces are

above the shops.

inner city location, this can meanmanagement of anti-social behaviour,such as drunkenness and littering. Thereis also a need for community-basedmanagement of cultural activities.Currently, there is no clear arrangementbetween HCD and the local council overwho ought to do what, and how, mosteffectively. Nor is there much willingnessas yet, on the part of the Council, todevolve responsibility for neighbourhoodmanagement.

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Key points

• Leading role of community alliance working with the Council, businesses and otherstakeholders.

• Use of SRB funding for premises refurbishment, environmental improvements, trafficcalming, and training and job creation.

Synopsis

A small high street which has suffered from a large nearby supermarket and other changes. Theretail strategy is based on a consultant’s assessment of options, public investment in arefurbished library and baths, and a healthy living centre. Footfall is increased by developingretail and social facilities.

Existing high streets

UPPERTHORPE, SHEFFIELD

Regeneration of an inner city high street of shops and community facilities.

There are currently 23 shop units in mixedownership in the high street of this villagewithin a long-standing regeneration area. Sixare vacant with a number of hot food shopsclosed during the daytime adding to theimpression of ‘dead frontage’. A post office andlocal hotel are key to generating footfall. Thearea started to decline soon after a Safewaystore opened within a few hundred metres.

The Upperthorpe Community Alliance,which occupies a previously derelict shop,worked with the Council to secure necessarySRB funding for upgrading the area. Inrecognition of the shopping area’s local socialimportance, the Alliance allocated funds(match-funded by the Council) to improve theenvironment and streetscape.

A common approach to shop frontage is afirst step to promoting a collective identity forthe area. The Alliance is also working with theCouncil on traffic calming and pedestrian safety.Plans include public art and better streetlighting. Also of issue is the redesign of the back

areas of the shops to curb anti-social uses suchas drug dealing. The Alliance is in discussionwith the Council on the management of publicopen space in the area and hopes to secureemployment benefits for local residents in aservice agreement.

In addition, local businesses can apply forgrants for upgrading of premises from aprivate-sector-led initiative. A condition of grantis that investment should assist job creation orprotect local jobs. Representation on the boardof this initiative provides the Alliance with anopportunity to act as a first point of contact.This also provides a basis for dialogue betweenAlliance and local businesses on issues such astraffic management and business development.

The Alliance is also encouraging a range ofalternative uses for vacant shop units, includingthe Sheffield Community EnterpriseDevelopment Unit, which provides businessadvice and support to community enterprises.Other units have been taken up by a recyclinggroup and young people’s project.

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Business resource centre at the

entrance to Upperthorpe high street.

The offices of the Community Alliance

are in a restored shop nearby.

A striking new medical centre with

chemist is an attractive investment in

Upperthorpe, providing social benefits

and increasing footfall.


• Key role for community alliance: the localcommunity plays a key role in reversingretail decline, working closely with thelocal council and other stakeholders, andwith regeneration funding to hand.

• Social investment a first step: investment ina healthy living centre, communitylibrary and public baths provided apositive starting point for upgradingretail vitality. The regeneration strategy

links retailing to community activity tobuild confidence in the area, to increasefootfall and to take up vacant shop unitsby providing space for socialorganisations that help communitydevelopment.

• Practical retail strategy: the need to balancecommunity aspirations against what iscommercially viable is important. Thestrategy identifies niche markets andencourages traders willing to take risks in

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Key points

• Listed chapel, restored after legal battles by a local community development trust, now a socialand educational centre, including cinema and training facilities.

• Future reinforcement of retail vitality will be undertaken by local partnership within thecontext of strategic renewal, and local shopkeepers and residents would like increasedopportunity for real participation.

Synopsis

The high street is surviving even subsidised bus services to superstores. The chapel provides anattractive physical focus, but also a social centre which supports community spirit. This reinforcesFerndale as a destination and increases footfall. The restoration won a British Urban RegenerationAssociation national award.

these areas. It is important to encouragecomplementary uses that promotefootfall.


• Need to secure ‘social’ planning gain: localactivists wish that planning authoritieshad been more proactive when Safeway

was granted planning permission, tosecure community benefits in terms oflocal employment. The CommunityAlliance also argues that its task would beeasier if businesses in deprived areaswere eligible for rates relief, as inenterprise zones.

FERNDALE, RHONDDA CYNON TAFF

A lively high street in a former mining town, surviving deindustrialisation, depopulation of theValleys and arrival of superstores, aided by the restoration of a derelict chapel at its heart.

Ferndale is a modest-sized town. Althoughunemployment is high, it has an attractiveappearance and good quality of life, particularlynow that strides have been made in reclamationof mining land, which has become greencountryside.

Ferndale has a lively high street of more than25 shops including: two butchers, two chemists,two supermarkets (Co-op and Spar), two banks,a baker, jeweller, travel agent, ironmonger,flowershop and others – in short, an array ofshops which many towns would envy. There isalso a new surgery and library. The narrow highstreet is the main route up the valley, busy with

pedestrians and cars.Ferndale has survived the arrival of a

number of food superstores in Rhondda overthe previous decade, some of which offer free orlow-cost (10 or 20p) bus services to theirpremises. These retailer-subsidised serviceshave carried as many as 250,000 passengers peryear per store to the main towns andsuperstores. Funded from ‘head office’ to bolstercustom, the budget is controlled by the localstore manager who tailors the routes to suitlocal requirements.

Despite this option for their customers, mostof Ferndale’s retailers continue to trade

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Historic chapel saved from demolition

and renovated by the local

development trust provides a centre

point to Ferndale’s high street with

community offices, meeting space,

educational facilities and a full screen

cinema club.

profitably. One recent event that has helpedmaintain retail vitality was restoration of aderelict chapel standing at the main intersection,which made an enormous difference to thephysical attractiveness of the town centre. Thechapel, Trerhondda, was restored after muchstruggle by Ferndale’s CommunityDevelopment Trust (CDT), Arts Factory.1

Abandoned by its congregation, which couldnot afford to repair its leaky roof, it was slatedfor demolition by the (now defunct) localborough council, which was petitioning forremoval of listed building status. Approachedby the Arts Factory, the council stuck to itsstance, even resorting to veiled threats to forcethe CDT out of business. The Arts Factory onthe other hand could see that the chapel waspotentially a vital community asset. Demolitionof the town’s architectural heritage hardlyseemed the way forward.

The Arts Factory collected 6,000 signaturesfrom Valley residents and mounted a mediacampaign. The Secretary of State ordered apublic inquiry with the decision going to

restoration. Today, Trerhondda provides thetown’s social heart, replacing not only thedemolished cinema but also lost working men’sclubs. It has a mother and toddlers’ group,youth outreach team, citizens’ advice surgeryand offers further education classes in a varietyof subjects, such as computer training. It servesas an art exhibition area, houses a graphicdesign business and provides communitymeeting facilities. The congregation who couldnot afford its upkeep have now returned toworship there. The big screen cinema operatesas a free film club. Craft fairs are held, whichreinforces the town as a destination. Trerhonddatakes care to support local retailing but not tocompete. For example, there is no café, becausethere are local cafés nearby.

Other initiatives to support retailing are nowemerging, in part because of the injection ofObjective 1 monies, and because of the emergingcommunity planning initiative, overseen by thelocal authority of Rhondda Cynon Taff (RCT). Aprevious scheme for shop-front renewal hasevolved into a commercial improvement grant

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scheme, supporting premises improvement,business planning and e-commerce.

The newly evolving community planninginitiative, with Wales Communities Firstregeneration funding stream, offers potential forlinking top-down strategic planning forretailing and town centres with bottom-up localplanning. RCT, for example, has established astrategic plan for town centre renewal, with ahierarchy of initiatives. Ferndale falls into thethird phase, which links retail and socialregeneration.


• Local action through community development

trust: Trerhondda is a good example oforganised community action through thedevelopment trust framework, nurturinga positive relationship between retailpremises and social facilities to reinforcefootfall while promoting social andeconomic development.


• Need to reinforce retail vitality through local

planning and investment: shopkeepers in

Ferndale would like to participate moreactively to promote the town as a retaildestination, and not just on an occasionalbasis. New mechanisms, such as throughCommunity Planning, could provide thisopportunity for participation over manyyears. Local shopkeepers would also liketo see more investment in urban design:pavements, seating areas, publicsculpture, flower planting and so on.They would also like to see investment inannual events, such as a carnival, whichcould reinforce the village in social andcommercial terms.

• Shop security grilles give forbidding evening

appearance: As in many retail areas,security grilles give a forbiddingappearance out of hours, particularlythose which allow no view of the shop’sinterior. Given that security andappearance can be achieved by betterdesign of grilles, early attention to thisboth locally and in planning policy maybe indicated.

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Key points

• Creative strategy linking retailers and local council transformed a local shopping street intoan Asian-specialty regional destination, while serving local needs.

• Refurbished high street environment with better balance between cars and pedestrians, andpublic art programme involving residents and schoolchildren.

• As in many partnerships, stakeholders’ differing interests generate tension.

Synopsis

Building on the clustering of specialist ethnic retailers, the Green Street Partnership has acted ina creative way to enlarge its catchment, and to tie retail regeneration to social and educationalobjectives. The success is visible. Like many partnerships, problems of communication andtensions over investment decisions and issues such as parking need constant attention, butthere is also ‘creative tension’ in the Council and retailers working together.

GREEN STREET, LONDON BOROUGH OF NEWHAM

Enhancement of the retail and social vitality of a London high street and covered market.

Green Street is a long high street, a stone’sthrow from the West Ham football ground.Newham is the most ethnically diverse Londonborough, with a majority of its population fromminority ethnic households. Thirty years ago,Green Street was predominantly populated byJewish traders, most of who achieved prosperityand departed to greener pastures. This indicatesa key challenge to the Borough – to retain higherincome households rather than merely be a‘staging post’ on the road to prosperity.

Since the first Asian traders arrived in the1960s, Green Street has become a significantdestination for Asian clothing, jewellery andfoodstuffs. There is also a covered marketfronting Green Street, the Queens Market, onthe site of an old street market. At busy times,there are more than 100 market stallholderstrading alongside 20 permanent shops, whichenclose the market on either side. The marketstructure has rooftop parking.

At the advent of SRB, Newham Councillaunched a first-round bid to:

• cement the retail vitality of Green Streetand Queens Market, and reduce a 10 percent shop vacancy rate by environmentalimprovements and by co-operativemarketing efforts with retailers

• use the retail initiative to foster educationand training, given minority ethnicunemployment 50 per cent higher thanthe area average

• support community and housinginitiatives

• mount a community safety initiative.

The Green Street Partnership includesrepresentatives from traders’ associations,community and educational interests and localcouncillors. Total SRB investment in the area hasbeen £8.1 m., rising to £17.6 m. with matchfunding. To achieve its ends, the Partnershipworks closely with Newham College, which hasa business education and training centre in ahistoric, restored community education facility.

45


The centre, Barclay Hall, offers courses, crèchefacilities, computer lab and a communitymeeting hall. It is especially concerned with theneeds of women in the job market and residentswishing to start businesses.

The SRB initiative goes beyond retailingwith expenditure on schools and communityprojects, women’s programmes and housingimprovements. The main expenditures in theretail sector have been: environmentalimprovements – particularly pavementwidening – pedestrian crossings and creation ofmosaic displays; improvements to the marketincluding new canopies to mark its entrance;and a marketing campaign, described below.Other SRB investments have been made in localschools, particularly in IT and science labs, andin community projects.

At one point, the partnership almost cameoff the rails when traders felt that they had notbeen consulted over imposition of a controlledparking zone (CPZ). A meeting was hastilycalled but traders felt their views were stillignored and they took court action against theCouncil. Subsequently, the CPZ was instigatedbut with provision of off-street parking, withtraders getting concessions. Some traders alsoresisted footway widening as detrimental,although evidence is for increased footfall andbetter turnover.

There is evidence that the retail programmeis bearing fruit. Visitor surveys, carried out bystudents at Newham College, have documenteda rise in visitors from outside the Borough from15 per cent of shoppers to 34 per cent during theSRB. The intention by way of an exit strategywould be to put in place a town centremanagement regime, to address environmentand cleansing, and to revitalise a retailer-

managed marketing forum.


• High quality environment: widenedpavements have enabled a vibrantshopping environment, while allowing areasonable traffic flow. The balance hasbeen shifted in favour of pedestrianswithout losing the linear high street feel.Of special interest is the use of SRB andcouncil funding to link local primaryschools, a secondary school and threecommunity groups for elders withenvironmental artists to create a series ofpavement mosaics on local themes,backed up by a community exhibitionand poetry project.

• Marketing strategy: a unique initiative hasbeen use of £140,000 of SRB funds spreadover seven years to market Green Streetas a regional destination, co-ordinated bya council officer with experience in mediaand visitor promotion. A first step was tohire, for a modest fee, consultantsconcerned with branding and image.They synthesised the Asian products onsale into four themes which defined thecampaign – fashion materials, jewellery,clothing and foodstuffs – and identified atarget audience of affluent, second-generation Asians. Key themes wereexpressed in a advertising campaign ofposters on the sides of London buses,with a glossy photo for each theme andthe strap line ‘This is Green St’. Anotherran ‘Oxford St, Bond St, Green St’. Othercampaigns included radio advertising,ads in regional Asian print media and a30-second ad on an Asian-oriented

46


Attention to environmental quality

including new ornamental street

lighting and, here, a road closed to

create public space, makes Green

Street an attractive destination.

satellite TV – reported to have been seenin Geneva! The modest promotion budgethas been augmented in three ways. First,every ad campaign has included a localmonth-long promotion devised by thecouncil officer and the retailers, such as a‘Hot Shopping Month’ includingstorefront displays, gift giveaways, acustomers’ lottery and branded carrierbags. Second, every supplier of serviceshas been encouraged to offer discounts to

build a client base with local retailers.Third, retailers have moved into self-marketing, for example, commissioningglossy photo-ads in the Vogue-likemagazine, Asian Woman.


• Parking: provision remains an issue,especially as Green Street cements itsobjective of becoming a regionaldestination – many shoppers arrive bycar. Although additional off-street space

Wide pavements in Green Street give

traders a chance to mount beautiful

displays of food and shoppers room to

browse. Footfall and turnover have

increased.

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Key points

• A market run by a community-based development trust offers an organisational model forother off-street markets.

• Marketing strategy based on augmenting retail function for high quality farm and organicproduce, intended to serve local residents and a wider catchment, and refurbishment of localshops for food-related businesses.

Synopsis

Contraction of the market’s wholesale function necessitated an expansion of its role back intoretailing, as it was more than one hundred years ago. Its trustees have developed aregeneration and marketing strategy based on high quality retail provision, food-relatedtraining and business development, and refurbishment of local shops.

has been provided, in part by the use bythe Council of compulsory purchasepowers, and the CPZ controls on-streetparking, residents naturally feel there istoo much traffic, while traders feel thereis not enough customer parking.

• The future of Queens Market: as of thiswriting, Queens Market traders areconcerned that council interests seespiralling London property prices as an

opportunity to demolish a poorlydesigned, expensive-to-maintain markethall, and free up a site for redevelopment.One aspect of concern is that the Council,as their landlord, can avoid renewingleases thereby undercutting the traders’association’s membership base. Fewstallholders have the financialwherewithal to suffer any protectedperiod of uncertainty.

Existing market hall

BOROUGH MARKET, LONDON BOROUGH OF SOUTHWARK

Regeneration of a historic inner London market dating from 1756.

The first record of Borough Market is in 1014AD. It was established at its present 4.5 acre siteby an Act of Parliament in 1756. It was a retailmarket selling a wide variety of food until thelate nineteenth century when it became awholesale market trading from the ringing of abell at 9.00 p.m. through the night. The marketconsists of a glass-roofed structure, with twoVictorian railway viaducts running over its top,and offices facing Borough High Street. The

market is administered by a non-profitdevelopment trust, managed by 21 trustees wholive locally and are nominated by communitygroups. The market has a small staff including amarket inspector, small business adviser, fourbeadles and two porters. The market’sdevelopment trust status ensures that it worksdirectly in the combined interests of localresidents and for the healthy continuation of themarket in perpetuity.

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In recent years, the market’s wholesalefunction has contracted, due to the centralisedbuying practices of major supermarket chainsand to traffic congestion, which has caused allother wholesale markets to move from central toperipheral locations. Recent disturbance due toconstruction of the Jubilee Line has also createdproblems, and the market is now fightingproposals to widen the railway viaducts thatcross it. The number of wholesalers has declinedfrom around 150 in the market’s heyday to 20 in1994 and just nine today.

To meet these challenges and to assist in theregeneration of this inner city neighbourhood,the market has joined forces to establish aBorough Markets Partnership which brings ittogether with the Peabody Trust, the localcouncil, churches, the residents’ forum, nearbybusinesses and the market traders’ association.Four years ago, with SRB funding, thePartnership embarked on a regenerationstrategy. For the market itself, the key plank inthe strategy is to position the market back to itsearlier role as a retail market, but one based onhigh quality farm and organic produce. As partof this programme, the partnership hasrenovated its surrounding properties and filledthem with new food-related tenants, started aretail market two days a week and establishednew food retailers within the market on apermanent basis.

It has buttressed this with an innovativemarketing programme. This began with aweekend ‘Food Lovers’ Fair’, withdemonstrations by professional chefs, whichwas a great success and attracted televisioncoverage. The retail market then opened oneday a month, then Friday and Saturday once amonth, now Friday and Saturday every week.

There is an annual three-day ‘Apple Festival’,organised in association with the charityCommon Ground which celebrates rare andtraditional varieties of British apples. Thisincludes theatre performances in the market bya group that marches from the nearby GlobeTheatre. The Apple Festival in turn is part of theSouthwark Festival. The product range in themarket now extends to fish, shrimp, scallops,game and poultry, wild mushrooms, organicbeer and many other premium products. A‘London’s larder’ website ties together all theinformation on the market.

The partnership has embarked on a food-related training programme and a market traderprogramme led by the market, which also offersa small business advisory service and achildcare programme for local residents. Acourse leading to a Basic Food HygieneCertificate is available for local restaurant staff.

Despite its marketing success, the marketand the surrounding area still face challenges.The market structure is in poor shape andrequires renovation. It is putting in place aregeneration package that combines market andpublic funds. Surrounding local shops have alsobeen steadily renovated and let to food-relatedtenants. The market also has majorimprovement plans and has purchased theglass-house façade of Covent Garden’s FloralHall, which it now has in storage. It is intendingto use this as a striking entrance to a newdevelopment of retail premises and as asignificant urban design focus for thesurrounding neighbourhood.


• Repositioning with a view of strengths and

market: the market’s repositioning has

49


Borough Market, managed by a community trust

since 1756, revitalises itself with an added role in

high quality and organic food and keen marketing.

A new stallholder in Borough Market

with an inviting display of artisan

cheeses.

recognised the enormous potential of a‘niche’ which stresses high quality farmand organic produce. This enables it toserve local needs for better food and builda wider catchment in a sector of themarketplace where they do not comehead to head with the big multiples andwhich is entirely suited to the premises.

• Marketing strategy: a strategy based onsteadily attracting both additionalcustomers and additional traders, thelatter with on-site training available tothem. Use of fairs and linkage to localSouthwark fair gives visibility andindicates local commitment.

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5 Starting over – new shopping areas

within integrated regeneration

initiatives

Key points

• Master planning process, which has developed a new, but traditionally patterned, inner citytenemental neighbourhood out of a brownfield site.

• New shops and homes reflect commitment to quality urban design and traditional materials.• Typical problems of anti-social behaviour need active management.• Nearby developments could undermine retail regeneration.

Synopsis

The shopping street of the new neighbourhood is located just off a main route through the areato combine local and passing trade. Integration of new housing with shopping is readilyapparent with a dozen retail businesses trading satisfactorily and with population set to growas housing is occupied. Problems of shopper and store staff insecurity, and shoplifting,associated with a methadone maintenance programme are being addressed.

New local high street

CROWN STREET, GORBALS, GLASGOW

Re-creation of traditional urban streetscape including new shops and supermarket, most at streetlevel under new residential tenements, on a 40-acre site.

Infamous for having 100,000 people packed intoa square mile of teeming nineteenth-centurytenements, themselves built over earlier slums,the Gorbals underwent comprehensive renewalin the 1960s. Traditional stone tenements on agrid were replaced by system-built, multi-storeyhousing. With this demolition, 387 shops and 39public houses disappeared, replaced by ashopping precinct at the base of a huge block offlats. Also disappearing were ‘backcourts’crammed with small industries.

By the 1980s, what had been regarded as anarchitectural showpiece was in decline. A focusof resident disapproval was the notorious‘Hutchesontown E’ blocks. Their demolition in1989 left a site which was to be reborn as CrownStreet. Central to regeneration was a vision of:

… an attractive and popular inner-city area servedby a full range of local shops, public services andcommunity facilities.

Crown Street is an important catalyst toregeneration of the Gorbals. The GorbalsInitiative is a partnership of the GlasgowDevelopment Agency, Glasgow District Counciland Scottish Homes. As a first step, masterplanning was initiated involving consultantsand public participation, overseen by the activemanagement of Crown Street Regeneration.Although there was initial consideration ofredevelopment of the 1960s’ shopping arcade, anumber of factors influenced the decision tofashion an entirely new shopping environment:

51

Starting over – new shopping areas within integrated regeneration initiatives

New townscape and shopping street

at Crown Street in Glasgow’s

traditional tenemental form. The

spacious pavement in the foreground

fronts the new Kwik Save.

• Crown Street’s significance as a ‘flagship’project for the Gorbals

• urban design objectives which intendedto recreate an urban grid pattern

• the need to provide a quality shoppingenvironment alongside new housing toattract new householders and create amixed-tenure, mixed-income community.

The old shopping centre is soon to bedemolished to make space for residentialdevelopment and the new shopping area isnearly complete. There are currently 11 retailbusinesses operating, plus a new supermarket.

Crown Street Regeneration is committed tolocal economic development, to generateemployment and contribute to retail vitality. Forexample, 11 railway arches have beenrefurbished as affordable locations for a varietyof businesses. A new hotel has recently opened.However, a related phase of development,incorporating a pub, library, new church andadditional business units, has been delayed dueto difficulties in pulling together a fundingpackage.


• Master planning: given principles ofsustainability, and reintroduction of thetraditional street pattern, new retail unitsfronting the street were a key objective.The decision to create a mixture of retailtenures is also intended to contribute toviability. Some shops were sold freehold;a property company bought two foronward letting and the rest are availableon a commercial letting basis. Overall, thedensity of housing supports retailviability while the availability of adjacentshopping contributes to the marketabilityof new housing and quality of life in thisnew, but traditional, neighbourhood.

• Quality urban design: the incorporation ofretail units into the traditional tenementform reflects a commitment to urbandesign. With shop design by the samearchitects responsible for housing,retailing is well integrated, fulfilling theintention of creating urban, rather thansuburban, form. The standard of exteriorfinish, including use of natural sandstonewhich defines significant Glasgow

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Key points

• New-build centre is attractive to local residents and shoppers from further afield travellingby car and bus.

• Twenty-four hour security and twice-a-day cleaning maintain environmental quality anddeter anti-social behaviour.

• Shopping centre linked to a new, popular community and health resource centre, which hasattracted the estate’s first resident health and primary care service.

• ‘L’-shaped shopping centre gives high security but offers little urban design benefit.

Synopsis

Development around a car park anchored by a Kwik Save and Iceland, and with 11 unitstrading actively. The new-build approach was seen as essential to overcoming the poorreputation of the previous precinct and to broadening the catchment. A disadvantage is a carpark as a focal point and the high security ‘backside’ of the ‘L’, which presents a monolithic,unwelcoming aspect to two sides of the surrounding neighbourhood.

buildings, is superior to that normallyachieved on commercial developmentsoutside of established town centres.


• Partnership: there is concern thatredevelopment of the area has proceeded ata slower pace than expected which has hada knock-on effect on retail vitality in theshort term. As in any cleared regenerationarea with phases of demolition and newbuild of housing, the numbers ofhouseholds within the catchment area willdecline before they begin to rise.

• Security: an unintended by-product of theprovision of a chemist’s in the retail mixhas been public safety issues associatedwith a methadone maintenance

New shopping centres

PENNYWELL, SUNDERLAND

New shopping centre which replaces a derelict 1960s’ precinct at the heart of what used to beSunderland’s most stigmatised estate. A successful development with near full occupancy and anextended catchment.

programme, including problems ofshoplifting and mugging. Somecommentators suggest profit is being putbefore community safety, and thissituation was in danger of undermininginvestment in regeneration and theobjective of creating a mixed-incomeneighbourhood. The issue is currentlybeing addressed.

• Threats to viability: nearby developmentsites have received planning permissionfor a retail warehouse park, the latterincluding fast food and petrol stationshop. These fit poorly with the vision ofthe master plan for a traditionallypatterned, urban neighbourhood andmay affect the viability of Crown Street.

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In 1996, the City of Sunderland Partnershipagreed that the Pennywell Estate andsurrounding area, home to 9,500 residents,should be top priority for regeneration. At thistime, 78 per cent of younger residents wanted toleave the area as soon as possible. Amongaspects of Pennywell’s poor reputation, it wasknown as the ‘car crime capital of Europe’ andthe sink estate of Sunderland.

Even before this, however, the recognisedchallenge facing the local developmentorganisation, the Pride in Pennywell campaign –later the SRB-funded Proving Partnership Works(PPW) – was to restore pride in the area and togive local people a central role in developing apositive future for the estate. Pride in Pennywelllinked local residents with business and politicalleaders at the city level. A multi-dimensionaleconomic and social programme was developed.This included attention to the run-down shoppingprecinct on Pennywell Green at the estate’s heart.

At one time, the precinct had beenprosperous, anchored by a Woolworth’s andwith many active shops. But decline set induring the 1980s, exacerbated by fire damage.By 1990, only two shops and two takeawayswere trading, the upper floors had becomederelict and drunkenness and glue sniffing werewidespread. Around the same time, theproperty company that owned the centre wentout of business, creating a management hiatus.

A crucial decision was taken not to renovatethe existing centre, but to demolish it and builda new shopping centre across the road on openspace. The intentions were to:

• create a new image of the shopping centreand not to attempt to build on the old,stigmatised image

• create an investment opportunity for aprivate developer-manager

• make the centre relevant to local needs

• increase its viability by making itattractive to car-borne shoppers, and byattracting anchor tenants appropriate tothe market

• make it secure by design, CCTV, round-the-clock security, and by night-timefunctions such as takeaway and videorental shops

• make the centre a social as well as retaildestination by development of acommunity, health and medical resourcecentre.

Although there were some objections to thetake-up of green space, and concern of the fewremaining retailers over future rents, Pride inPennywell persisted with its new-buildprogramme, to great success. The PennywellShopping Centre, owned and managed by aprivate company in association with Kwik Saveand Iceland, opened in 1995. The land that thecentre sits on was ‘donated’ to the developmentconsortium by the Council as a means ofpromoting inward investment.

The centre is now trading successfully, withalmost every unit rented. Tenants include fruitand vegetable shop, food takeaway, chemist,post office, betting shop, newsagent, baker anda mini-cab office. There is also a police outpost,used mainly as a ‘surgery’, and the office ofPPW. Across the road, the previous site nowcontains an attractive sheltered housingdevelopment.

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The new shopping centre at

Pennywell has helped turn around

perceptions of a stigmatised estate

and provides a valuable retail

resource for local residents.


• Extended catchment: the relocation/new-build decision, attraction of anchor foodstore tenants, a range of shops andservices such as mini-cab and visible,secure parking area all benefit localresidents but also attract shoppers fromfurther afield, contributing to retailviability.

• Security and cleanliness: a 24-hour-per-day,seven-days-per-week security guard andmonitoring CCTV are seen as essential.‘Hanging out’ is discouraged and there islittle vandalism. Sunderland Council hasprovided a dedicated cleaning regime,which was extended from once to twice aday as soon as it was apparent that asingle daily clean was insufficient.

• Attached community centre: the newPennywell Neighbourhood and MedicalCentre, opened in 2000, owned by a locallymanaged, non-profit trust. This brings afurther flow of residents into the shoppingcentre. The site is leased from the Council

on a 99-year lease. Prior to its opening, theestate had no GP or childcare facilities.These are now provided, with a PrimaryCare Team supplemented by an antenataland mum and baby clinic, parent andtoddler facility, teenage health informationservice, a course in ‘Parenting Power’ anda ‘Young at Heart’ group for elderlyresidents. The community centre, inpartnership with other agencies, alsoprovides childcare training for localresidents and a school holiday activityprogramme attended by more than 1,300young people. The centre is open until 9.00p.m., which contributes to the area’sliveliness in the evening.

Points of concern

• Quality of urban design: the catchment hasbeen extended by making the centreattractive to car-based shoppers. This isimportant because Pennywell still suffersfrom a high void rate in social housingand the numbers of local residents areinsufficient to support a full range ofshops. The attractiveness of the centre is

55


Key points

• Rebuild intended to side-step the area’s poor reputation and turn a declining local centreinto a sub-regional destination.

• Challenge by Leeds City Council, and commitment by Tesco, to create 300 jobs forunemployed local residents in return for planning permission. First of a series of initiativesby which Tesco intends to create 2,000 jobs in regeneration areas.

• New bus station promotes public transport use.• ‘L’-shaped design presents a forbidding ‘backside’ to the community.

Synopsis

The declining 1960s’ shopping centre was plagued by crime and anti-social behaviour. TheCouncil opted for demolition and Tesco made a commitment to job creation through a SeacroftPartnership. The new centre is 100 per cent occupied. It includes good bus links through a newbus station adjacent to the Tesco store, although the centre’s car-park-oriented design tends toturn its back on the community.

in part due to the range of shops, but alsoto the typical ‘L’-shaped design, whichenfolds a car park with two arms of shopsand makes it constantly visible. This typeof design, much the same as in Seacroft,Leeds and other locations, works well for

car park security, but raises concerns overits urban design quality in that thebacksides of the development, not facingthe car park, are basically a solid wall,impenetrable to the public andunattractive.

SEACROFT GREEN, LEEDS

Demolition and rebuilding of a district shopping centre in East Leeds to give a 110,000 sq. ft TescoExtra and ten additional shops.

Seacroft Green’s redevelopment involved thecomplete rebuilding of a new-town-style districtshopping centre and market hall serving anumber of estates at the periphery of Leeds. It isthe first of a series of partnership initiativesbetween Tesco, the New Deal for Employmentand local stakeholders to invest in brownfieldsites, and to link food retailing to training andemployment creation. The Seacroft Partnershipincludes Leeds City Council, Tesco, developersAsda St James, Employment Service, the EastLeeds Family Learning Centre and

shopworkers’ union USDAW.Seacroft Green was fully let through the

1980s, but the centre was never profitable for theCouncil and its popularity was on the wane. By1990, it was in decline, in part due to anti-socialbehaviour. Shoppers suffered car crime andthere were burnt-out wrecks littering the area.The centre was difficult to police due to anunderground parking garage and ‘nooks andcrannies’ in the original design. The whole areasuffered from stigma, which caused all of themultiple retailers and its six banks to move

56


elsewhere. There were also structural problemsdue to concrete failure, with the fire marshalthreatening closure.

Following an option study by consultants, in1995, a decision for demolition was taken by theCouncil, which owned the centre. Theconsultant’s conclusion was that, given itslocation on the ring road, the site had retailpotential but the existing physical fabric andcentre’s reputation did not support thataspiration. Demolition was intended to addressthe stigma of the old centre in one go.Compulsory purchase orders were used to shifta few tenants with long ground leases. Othertenants were promised space in theredevelopment and one parade of shops wasleft standing during demolition to provide forlocal requirements.

During this period, the Council had manydiscussions with potential retail investors. TheCouncil’s aspiration was for a moderate-sizefood unit of about 50,000 sq. ft as an anchor for anew shopping centre. But existing localprovision of moderate-size supermarkets withina few miles, and tight profitability in this sizerange, meant there was no retailer interest in amid-size store. Following consultations, Tescoapproached the Council and argued that a large-format store, with a sub-regional catchment,would be viable, given economies of scale andthe low land value of the site in a deprived area.

The new development opened in 2000. It is amodern, attractive centre, typically ‘L’-shapedwith shops facing the car park. It is anchored by a‘Tesco Extra’ whose product range includes notonly food, but also clothing, electrical goods,mobile phones and toys. There is also a postoffice, bank, travel agent, baker and five othershops. In the car park, there is a bus station with

frequent local and regional services to manydestinations. The Council retains the freehold buttakes no income at this stage. There are, however,‘profit claw back’ arrangements in place.

A particular thrust of the development is tosecure employment benefits. To this end, Tescoentered into agreement with the East LeedsFamily Learning Centre, to organise trainingand childcare. Applicants are selected by theEmployment Service and sent to college to learnbasic working skills. The Partnership’semployment strategy states that, in the firstinstance, 240 of the 320 new workers at the storewill be former long-term unemployed localresidents. This goal has been exceeded.

In association with the redevelopment, anearby local health centre is being refurbished.Although there are no social facilities associatedwith this phase of the development, there ispotential in future to revitalise a local bingo halland a listed school building for communityfacilities.


• Local employment and retail benefits: Tescohas made good on its promise to LeedsCity Council to create a substantialnumber of jobs for local unemployedpersons. In part, this has been enabled byTesco’s commitment to working throughlocal training and further educationorganisations. On the retail side, localresidents now have access to a substantialrange of goods at reasonable prices,without needing a car to do so.

• Private sector lead in partnership: although amember of the partnership, Leeds CityCouncil allowed Tesco and the trainingsector to lead on the all-important

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Tesco at Seacroft Green provides significant local

employment benefits, and broadens the range of

food and goods available locally. Although there is a

good bus station on site, many shoppers arrive by

car – an environmental issue that needs to be

addressed at national and regional levels.

The rear elevation of ‘L’-shaped

shopping centres like Seacroft Green

are good for security but can present

a forbidding aspect to the local

neighbourhood and deter easy access

by pedestrians.

training initiative. Consensus is that theprivate sector has been able to movemuch faster than the public sector in thisarea, enabling the partnership to achieveits objectives efficiently.


• Lack of retention of local traders: as in otherlocations such as Hulme, completedemolition of an operating retail centredealt directly and positively with a poorreputation. But it also disrupted theexisting retail base and meant loss ofexisting retail presence. Also aselsewhere, in the absence of monitoringduring redevelopment, it is difficult toassess the impact. Some traders relocated;others retired or went out of business.Some, trading at the margin, may havegone out of business in any event.Assurances were given to SeacroftGreen’s independent traders thatdisruption would be minimised and therewas discussion about a new market hallfor local stallholders, but this nevermaterialised. In the end, not one trader

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New shopping centre plus new high street

HULME HIGH STREET, MANCHESTER

Redevelopment of a 1960s’ shopping precinct, giving a new food superstore and two attached retailunits, which anchor the development of a new high street, market hall and community centre.

Key points

• A phased development, intended to attract new investment to a stigmatised area with a poorreputation, by creating the opportunity for a large food store adjacent to a busy highway.

• Using this as an anchor for new high street and market hall.• Loss of existing retail presence.

Synopsis

Comprehensive redevelopment included strong commitment to retail regeneration in twophases. The first saw construction of a food superstore. The logic is that through traffic accessesthe superstore, widening its catchment, without needing to drive into Hulme itself. Underconstruction is the new high street which bridges Hulme and Moss Side. The new market hall isnow open.

from the previous centre found a place inthe new development, which consistsalmost entirely of multiple retailers.

• Urban design: as at Sunderland, Seacroft’s‘L’-shaped design consists of a structureenclosing a car park. In the words of oneresident, ‘It’s no longer a town centre, justa shopping centre’. For security andservicing reasons, it bluntly turns its backon the surrounding community, with no

point of entry from anywhere but the carpark. In terms of site, the centre’s hilltopposition means that the back side of thedevelopment stands over the existingcommunity with an appearancereminiscent of a prison. On the shop sidewhere the old centre, for all its faults,provided social space, there is only spacefor parking, purchasing and waiting forthe bus.

Hulme, once a dense neighbourhood of two-storey houses clustered around a bustling highstreet, was cleared and redeveloped in the1960s. The local high street, Stretford Road, wasreplaced by a shopping precinct and market hallin a different location.

The redeveloped area deteriorated, withHulme’s reputation declining with it. In asecond round of redevelopment over the last

decade, Hulme has been completely rebuiltagain. Regeneration is based on a hierarchy oftraditional streets, ‘human in scale but urban innature’ (Hulme Regeneration Ltd, 1994). At theheart of regeneration are more than 2,000 newflats and houses. A strong housing market isseen as important in establishing the area’scredibility. Hulme Regeneration Ltd (HRL), apartnership of City Council and AMEC plc with

59


board representation from business andcommunity sectors, was set up to drive forwarda master plan.

Retail development was taken as essential.The 1960s’ precinct, owned by the Council, wason the edge of Hulme, adjacent to nearby MossSide. Towards the end of the precinct’s life,traders refused to pay rents in protest at theCouncil’s reluctance to carry out repairs. Oncedecline started, it proved difficult to reverse.Failure to pay rents led to evictions, which led totension between local traders and the Council.

HRL faced a difficult challenge. AlthoughHulme’s location is good, the reputation of thearea was poor. This made it difficult to attractnew retail investors. The reputation wouldnever be changed while the discredited 1960s’structures were in place. The need to clear sitesto attract private investment to the area led tothe demolition of the former centre.

At a community planning event, residentshad agreed with proposals for the old centre’sdemolition. There was consensus for a new highstreet. However, community representatives alsohighlighted the need for continuity for localtraders throughout redevelopment. Thecommunity’s proposal was to replace theenclosed centre with an open thoroughfare, withStretford Road reinstated as a high street.Redevelopment was to build on the positiveaspects of the old precinct including the 60 shopand stallholders, the latter in particular knownfor Afro-Caribbean food and products. However,the centre and market hall were closed long inadvance of replacement facilities and this led toaround two-thirds of local traders closing shopwith many of the rest moving to Moss Side.

In 1993, as a result of market analysis, HRLproposed a hierarchy of shopping:

• new ‘high street’ with a mix of retail andservice uses

• neighbourhood shopping in StretfordRoad

• local facilities at three other locations

• individual corner shops.

The main thrust of this was that re-creationof a new high street in Stretford Road wascommercially difficult, and that a more viableoption was to create a high street adjacent to anew food superstore next to a main highway.This would give passing motorists a close lookat the changed Hulme’s new shopping facilitiesand attract car-borne trade, which would benefitlocal residents by providing a wide range ofgoods. The redeveloped area, with parking for650 cars, is called ‘Hulme High Street’, a jointventure between AMEC plc and ManchesterCity Council.

The redevelopment of the 30-acre shoppingarea was put to tender and won by an AMECsubsidiary. The high street portion of thedevelopment (to be completed in 2002) isexpected to provide a social focus for the areaand includes an indoor and outdoor market(totalling 35,000 sq. ft) and a range of retail andcommercial facilities. With the design anddeveloper in place, no financial incentives werenecessary in attracting supermarket interest,with Asda persuaded on the quality of thelocation. Asda opened its 86,000 sq. ft store in1998 with two warehouse units, currentlyoccupied by a catalogue company and adiscount outlet. The food store was financedand built to Asda’s specifications.

The new market has been developed by apartnership between AMEC and French market

60


operators Groupe Geraud, which runs 300municipal markets across Europe. The marketprovides internal food stalls and a new publicsquare with scope for additional outdoor stalls.The partnership intends to build upon the Afro-Caribbean character of the area to promote themarket hall as a catalyst to footfall. However,given that many past traders have moved toother areas, promotion of the market hall is akey challenge. It is hoped that some markettraders, once established, may trade up to retailunits on the High Street.

There is every indication that many localresidents find the Asda a welcome addition toHulme in terms of the variety of goods on offer,prices and local employment benefits. The latterhave proved a striking success with over 80 percent of the 400 Asda employees previouslyunemployed and, of those, 51 per cent of aminority ethnic origin. It was also felt that thestore has provided a new meeting place forresidents. However, residents are also aware ofthe superstore’s negative impacts, such as its rolein undermining local shops and its high degreeof dependence on car-borne shoppers. There arealso concerns that Asda has cut into the localethnic retail market as it logically diversifies itsproduct range to cater for minority ethnic tastes.


• Master plan: the decision to package siteswith clear design briefs within the contextof an overall master plan was critical tosuccess. This enables developers to tailorfacilities to market demand. Emphasis oncommercial considerations in design issaid to bolster investor confidence.

• Joint venture company: transfer ofredevelopment responsibility from the

formal decision-making process ofManchester City Council to a jointventure company with strongdevelopment experience allowed retailregeneration to be driven forward outsideof the slower time frame of councildecision making. At the same time, theCouncil is part of the joint venture boardwith an important stake in the project.

• Training and recruitment: the key to Asda’seffectiveness in local recruitment was inworking with experienced localorganisations, such as Moss Side andHulme Community Development Trust.This built upon the good relationshipthese organisations had with local people.

• Phasing and investor confidence: throughoutthe development, AMEC took a commercialdecision not to flood the market with anoversupply of retail accommodation. It wasfelt that too many vacant units would createa poor impression and could undermineemerging investor confidence in Hulme.Careful phasing of development helpedbuild success.


• Lack of support for existing businesses: theneed for early demolition divertedattention from the need to supportexisting businesses duringredevelopment. Failure to put newfacilities in place meant that displacedbusinesses had nowhere to go. Althoughmarket traders were moved to temporaryaccommodation in a vacant local pub, thisproved inadequate, with the premisessubsequently closed on environmental

61


The new market hall under

construction at Hulme High Street and

now open.

The layout of Hulme High Street with the mall car park visible and accessible from a main highway, and the

new high street linking Hulme and Moss Side.

62


health grounds. Redevelopment had aparticularly negative impact on marginalbusinesses, many of which folded.

• Car dependence and the quality of urban

design: like many new developments inregeneration areas, a priority has been toattract retail investment and to widen thepotential catchment of the businesses tobe established. This has meant opting forthe currently popular shopping mallpremises, highly dependent on car-borneshoppers. Although the decision makes

commercial sense, little attention is paidto social costs in terms of air pollutionfrom cars. Like most such developments,it is also pedestrian-unfriendly, and lowin design quality, being mainly facing alarge car park with wide access roads.This type of development runs counter tothe urban aspirations set out in Hulme’sdesign guide. It remains to be seen if thenew high street will temper this lack ofurban design quality.

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A major regional centre on a brownfield site

BRAEHEAD RETAIL CENTRE, RENFREWSHIRE

A massive retail and leisure complex in Scotland, on 285 acres and with parking for 6,500 vehicles,located on derelict land near, but not close enough to walk to, the Scottish Social InclusionPartnership areas in Govan and Paisley.

Braehead, which opened in 1999, is promoted asthe focal point of a major regeneration initiativefor Clyde-side brownfield land within theGlasgow–Paisley conurbation. The centre’s M8location makes it accessible to around 50 percent of Scotland’s population within a 45-minute drive. The site was previously derelict,close to two Social Inclusion Partnership (SIP)areas: Paisley Partnership and the GovanInitiative. Braehead is one of the biggest out-of-town retail centres approved in Scotland, andthus a different order of case study. Planningpermission for the development predated the

6 The lessons of a regional shopping

centre

Key points• Multi-use development, encompassing retailing, leisure, housing and public parkland,

regenerating 285 acres of derelict land in a former shipbuilding area along the Clyde.• Reasonable, if not entirely successful, attempt to secure local employment benefits through

partnership.• Shopping centre developer-management company has joined Paisley Town Centre Vision

Partnership.• Almost completely car-dependent with little attention to environmental implications or

effect on neighbouring town centres.

Synopsis

Phase 1 has included 100+ stores. A modest number of jobs for nearby residents have beensecured, although most have gone to residents of the wider region. Problems in training ofresidents included slow start by public agencies, lack of experience of large retail projects,insufficient co-ordination of public agencies and poor information flows between trainingagencies and retailers. No assessment of the implications for CO2 emissions or otherenvironmental factors, although some traffic-impact forecasting was undertaken.

1998 revision of Scotland’s national planningguidance on shopping (NPPG 8), so it was notrequired to respond to a ‘sequential’ test.

Proposals for Braehead provokedcontroversy. The former Strathclyde RegionalCouncil refused planning permission and bothGlasgow City and Renfrewshire Councilsobjected. The Councils’ objection was that thecentre would undermine structure plan policyof sustaining and improving existing shoppingcentres by directing investment to them, andwould have adverse impact on existing retailviability. Following a public inquiry, consent for

64


the scheme was granted by the then Secretary ofState on appeal in June 1990.

Although not recognised as appropriatewithin the former Structure Plan, Braeheadfigures prominently within the latest Plan as a‘gateway’ to promote the growth in the Clydecorridor. A mixed-use second phase, includinghousing, is planned. The associatedredevelopment of the riverside walkway,provision of a maritime heritage centre andconstruction of nine light industrial units inGovan were secured as planning gain.

The extent of the development

The site is owned and managed by CapitalShopping Centres Ltd (CSC) whose portfolioincludes the Lakeside and Metro Centres. It wasdeveloped in association with Marks & Spencerand J. Sainsbury. The development wasundertaken as a straightforward commercialexercise and received no public subsidy. Publicinvolvement was confined mainly to attemptingto secure for local residents training andemployment opportunities from thedevelopment.

Phase 1, covering 110 acres and costing £285m., is largely complete and includes:

• shopping mall

• retail warehouse park

• 4,000-seat, multi-purpose arena

• ice complex

• maritime heritage centre

• bus station, coach park, taxi rank, 600cycle spaces, cycle routes

• business park.

The shopping mall is anchored by Marks &Spencer’s and a Sainsbury’s Savacentre. Sixteenmillion customers visited the centre during thefirst 12 months. Outside the centre, but adjacent,outline planning application is being submittedshortly for Phase 2 to include new homes, hotel,parkland and further entertainment outlets.

Aspects relevant to social inclusion

As a site derelict for 20 years, Braeheadrepresented a major opportunity foremployment generation and was intended tocontribute to employment opportunity forresidents in the adjacent SIPs. Estimates of jobscreated vary. According to CSC, building workoffered 3,500 jobs rising to 5,000 just before thecentre opened, but other sources suggest 2,500construction jobs at peak (Glass and McGregor,2000). Although opportunities for promotingemployment in construction tended to belimited due to use of subcontractors, it waswritten into contracts that, in those cases wherea contractor did not utilise existing staff, theEmployment Service would fill those positions.

Once the shopping centre opened, around3,000 jobs became available, 600 of which were tobe filled through an on-site recruitment centre,with the remainder filled by internal transfersand individual store advertising. A recentanalysis provides a critical assessment of jobtake-up (Glass and McGregor, 2000). Of all jobs,approximately two-thirds were filled by womenand one-third by men. Around a fifth of postscreated were filled by internal transfers fromstores elsewhere and the majority by directselection by the stores themselves. Theresearchers concluded that the part-time natureof work available and low hourly rates limitedthe social inclusion impacts to be achieved within

65

The lessons of a regional shopping centre

the nearby regeneration areas, with someresidents on benefit not finding the take-homepay sufficient to warrant leaving the benefitsystem. However, 97 per cent of jobs were filledby Renfrewshire residents and those from thewider Glasgow area. Significantly, the surveyfound that only 2 per cent of jobs were taken upby the long-term unemployed, defined as out ofwork for six months or more. The researchersdescribe the figure for the long-term unemployedrecruitment as ‘very disappointing’. However, itwas felt that intense pressure on retailers to openon time tended to work against the developmentof inclusive employment and trainingprogrammes. As one respondent put it, ‘whenthere is an urgency to the task, the inclusivenessagenda goes out the window.’

Issues related to local retailing and transport

The general perception is that Braehead hasimpacted on the viability of nearby Paisley towncentre, mainly at the margins. While the amountof vacant floor space in the town centre roseslightly around the time of Braehead’s opening to13.7 per cent of the total (from 12.14 per cent in1996), more recently this has declined to 10.3 percent (Renfrewshire Council, unpublished).However, there has been leakage of spendingfrom higher social groups from the town centre,reflected in the current tenant mix. The centre hasimpacted negatively on smaller, independentstores rather than on national retailers. However,Paisley has also suffered from competition fromretail expansion in neighbouring local authorityareas and growing customer expectations,perhaps better served by a climate-controlledshopping centre. For their part, CSC claims thatthe centre was never intended to ‘steal trade’ andthat the key objective is to promote the West ofScotland as a major retail destination.

A positive development has been initiationof a Paisley Town Centre Vision Partnership, ofwhich CSC is a member. The Partnership hassub-groups on retail promotion, the publicrealm, marketing and a range of initiatives todevelop Paisley’s distinctiveness as a nichecentre utilising existing resources such as itsarchitectural historical heritage and itsuniversity.

In transport terms, the development was notsubject to a traffic impact assessment, althougha proposed neighbouring Ikea development willbe. Although there have been vague proposalsto integrate the development with water taxislinked to Glasgow’s underground, to provide aferry service linking it across the river toGlasgow’s West End and to re-establish railconnections, the centre’s dependence on car-borne shoppers is established. In terms ofprivate funding for non-car transport, the costsof implementing other options is now unlikelyto yield an increase in retail and leisure tradesufficient to justify investment. Braehead istypical of British out-of-town shoppingdevelopments in that the great majority of itsshoppers arrive by car, as was intended. Noanalysis has been undertaken on theimplications for CO2 emissions.


• Proactive developer: CSC put a localmanagement team in place to create thenecessary partnerships and links for jobcreation. Representatives contacted over600 local business and community groupsto alert them to potential opportunities.

The developer also worked with publicagencies in the recruitment stages, hasnow joined the Paisley Town CentreVision Partnership and is co-operating

66


with Renfrewshire Council in areaplanning.

• Mixed-use development: regenerationbenefits to be achieved were material tothe Secretary of State’s decision to approvethe scheme, relating to the potential forshopping centres to act as a catalyst forother investments. This also coincides withretail trends in that the leisure componentwas to be integrated into the shoppingcentre to give a ‘total leisure visit’. Asplans for Phase 2 unfold, a long-standingderelict area could be transformed into avibrant mixed-use area.


• Low take-up of employment training: bothPaisley and Govan regenerationpartnerships adopted an approach whichtailored training to clients’ needs, withtraining delivered through local colleges.Courses ranged from part-time to in-depth training including work placement.However, the numbers that went throughtraining were disappointing. Of around10,000 persons who registered an interest,280 applicants undertook training.Explanations for low take-up includedinsufficient lead-time of agenciespromoting training relative to the pace ofdevelopment, delay between clientregistration and follow-up, andinsufficient co-ordination betweenagencies. More positively, many residentswho underwent training were successfulin gaining employment. In Govan, 61 percent gained some type of employment.

• Lack of a common agenda for employment and

training: one area of frustration was over

an inability to set up courses fast enoughat local colleges to enable stores to openwith ‘job-ready’ staff. One reason fordelay was that agencies involved came tothe table with different agendas and atdiffering paces. The majority of locallybased public sector partners wereinterested in creating opportunities forlocal residents and the long-termunemployed. This did not necessarilyinvolve getting residents jobs but wasabout providing support to enable themto compete effectively in the job market.However, for the Employment Service,the key objective was in getting peopleinto work whatever their home address.Based on the Employment Service’sobjective that all retail outlets would openwith sufficient staff, the initiative wassuccessful. This mismatch inorganisational objectives carried throughinto employment monitoring which hasmade it difficult to assess local, asopposed to sub-regional, employmentbenefits. Hindsight suggests that greaterco-ordination from the outset could haveresolved this difficulty.

• Time lag to public response: because theproject straddled administrativeboundaries, two local enterprisecompanies were responsible fororganising training through the localcolleges. However, they did not respondto this challenge at the same pace and, inone case, courses were not organised untilsome time after recruitment began. Assuch, those responsible for trainingprogrammes felt they did not haveenough time to make appropriate

67

The lessons of a regional shopping centre

arrangements. Training programmestended to be ‘too little, too late’.

• Poor links between training providers and

employers: training courses were intendedto be relevant to employers’requirements. However, lack of feedbackfrom employers regarding their initialrequirements and the relativequalifications of successful andunsuccessful applicants meant thattraining agencies felt unable to gauge theeffectiveness of programmes, or whetherless vocational aspects were significant,such as interpersonal skills. Access tomeaningful information could haveenabled agencies to tailor programmesmore effectively.

• Addressing long-term unemployment: abroad concern was whether short-termprogrammes are sufficient to preparelong-term unemployed residents ofchronically deprived areas to compete inthe job market – even for jobs nearby. Aquick approach, as dictated by the needhere to respond to market opportunities,may underestimate the deep-rootednature of intergenerationalunemployment and complex issuesaround self-esteem, self-confidence andpersonal development. Recognition ofthese issues has led the EnterpriseCompanies in the vicinity of Braehead toreconsider future project planning and todevelop the concept of ‘lifelong learning’.

68

The case studies demonstrate numerous usefulapproaches to retail revitalisation which caninspire innovation elsewhere. The manydifferent approaches confirm that there is no setpattern of appropriate responses to retaildecline. The best approaches are fashionedlocally, to account for market variations andlocal factors, but also to ensure that localstakeholders have a hand in fashioningsolutions of which they take ‘ownership’, andare therefore committed to their achievement.

There is growing discussion about the needfor retail strategies. This applies not only toshopping centres in designated regenerationareas, which may be badly off but also havesignificant financial and organisationalresources available to them, but also to manydeclining neighbourhood and district highstreets. Unfortunately, trends to larger-formatstores, which sell food, electrical goods, clothes,shoes, toys and other products, and include achemist, newsagent, off-licence, baker,fishmonger and other in-store shops, suggestthat many districts and neighbourhoods maycontinue to face contraction and decline. Thismay be offset by the advent of small-formatchain stores, but not to the extent that thedecline is reversed. The issue is whether declineis managed, proactively, to stave off its worsteffects and secure the benefits of retailexpansion and efficiency without condemninglocal areas to dereliction. Case studies likeHulme, Castlemilk, Crown Street, Castle Valeand others suggest that new developments thatalso secure local benefits are far superior tosimply letting the market dictate events.

The PAT 13 Report suggested that local

forums be established to develop retailstrategies. Similarly, a response by many localauthorities to out-of town shopping has beenintroduction of town centre management (TCM)partnerships. Most regeneration areas alreadyhave numerous partnerships in place. However,it is also the case that many stakeholders aresuffering from ‘partnership fatigue’.Recommendations for additional partnershipsshould recognise this. This chapter suggests theemerging mechanism of Community Planningshould be the means to achieve retail strategiesand streamlined partnerships, which are not‘talking shops’.

The dynamic nature of retailing also requiresbusiness strategies. The experience of Tesco andSainsbury’s reported here, and retailers likeBoots in playing an active role in TCM, suggestthat business strategies can be extended toencompass social and environmental objectives,and that there is much potential in a partnershipapproach which includes retailers and traders’associations. However, many retailers andtraders see little benefit in partnership activity,and might need positive encouragement torecognise that they have an importantcontribution to make to a healthy retail andsocial environment.

Following from the case studies, this chapterconfirms that a strategic, participative approachto retail revival is the best way to foster the kindof innovation reported here, and to help retailpartnerships overcome the constraints identified.The term ‘strategic’ refers to a longer-termperspective that realises economic, social andenvironmental benefits simultaneously. This isaccomplished by vertical integration between a

7 Conclusion: a strategic approach to

retail regeneration

69

Conclusion: a strategic approach to retail regeneration

national policy framework conducive to retailrevival, appropriate regional planning guidanceand the development of local retail strategies, atlocal authority and district/neighbourhoodlevels. The term ‘participative’ refers to themechanism of partnership, which here is definedin the context of Community Planning.

Retail strategy in planning

PPG 6 sets out the Government’s objectives,including focusing retail development inlocations where the proximity of businessesfacilitates competition from which consumersbenefit and which maximise opportunities fortransport other than the car (DETR, 1996). Theguidance states that it is not the role of theplanning system to restrict competition,preserve existing commercial interests orprevent innovation. There is also acceptancethat attempts to promote past pattern of usesagainst market trends that led to the originaldeterioration are unlikely to be successful.However, this may not be sufficient in that itfails to recognise:

• the significant role that planning policyand transport investments have played indecline of traditional retail patterns

• the social significance that many residentsattach to neighbourhood centres, even ifthey also shop elsewhere to save money,and their importance to non-car andvulnerable households

• the potential of revitalised local shoppingareas to contribute to reductions intransport emissions by fosteringsustainable transport modes.

Retail policy is set out in development plansand these generally contain policies to enhanceand promote the town centre and set out a retailhierarchy which forms the basis of thesequential test used to assess new development.Policy is well meaning in its support for towncentre function, but not yet sophisticatedenough to take into account the need for towncentre vitality and area regeneration.

There is no explicit advice within theguidance on the need or content of retailstrategies at the development plan (localauthority) or district/neighbourhood level. Noris there any obligation to secure social as well aseconomic benefits from the location of retailinvestment, beyond vague discussion of‘providing for people’s day-to-day needs’.Given the volume of retail investment in Britain,and the potential contribution to regenerationindicated in the case studies, an approach morefine-tuned to social needs is indicated.Providing it is applied fairly to all retailers, andthat retail location is supported by otherplanning and transport decisions, nodisadvantage ought to occur.

Local authorities also face difficulty overwhether to allow new development whereretailers are most keen, that is near car-owningprosperous households, or to attempt to steer ittowards deprived neighbourhoods. However,where town centres are functioning well andthere is less available property, development canbe steered to regeneration areas and this is apositive outcome of the current policy approachthat needs only to be reinforced. Again, there isnot a right answer, but the best answers will bederived in discussion, which local authoritiesenter armed with a high degree of intelligenceabout trends in the retail sector and how they

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relate to regeneration, social inclusion,sustainable development and other matters forwhich they uphold the public, long-terminterest.

Local authorities are also concerned thatdevelopments that they do not acceptwholeheartedly will simply go over to the nextauthority. This can have a detrimental impact ontheir willingness to steer retailing towards moremarginal and peripheral areas. In large urbanareas, a wider strategic approach to theplanning of new retail developments is requiredto prevent the ‘ambitions’ of individualauthorities from having a negative impact ondeprived neighbourhoods. Issues concerningthe beneficial location of retail investmentbetween competing local authorities need to beresolved within regional planning guidance thatrecognises the influence it will have on theoutcome of regeneration programmes. For toolong, land use planning and regeneration havebeen seen as unrelated fields of policy. A morejoined-up approach is suggested.

Recommendation to embed sustainability

criteria in regeneration strategy

With a few exceptions, there is little evidence ofsustainability criteria, such as for reducedvehicle emissions, having impact in the casestudies or in overall regeneration strategy. Yet,nowhere is the need more vital than inregeneration areas where environmental qualityimpacts on economic and social development,such as retention of inward investment andattraction of new residents to stem populationoutflow. It also impacts quality of life of sociallyexcluded households, who are more dependenton ‘public goods’ than well-off households whouse private buying power to offset low quality

in public provision. Strategies too often aredominated by an attitude that, given theeconomic decline suffered by such areas, almostany form of inward investment is better thannone with sustainability a luxury for a futuretime. Yet, these areas offer a real opportunity tocreate a ‘win–win’ situation of sustainability and

social inclusion, and to shift the urban agenda ina sustainable direction with models of goodpractice. With a few inspiring exceptions, suchas at Crown Street or Hulme, this nettle is notbeing grasped. Sustainability only comes aboutfrom linking national and regional policy tolocal action.

Recommendation on national planning

guidance

National planning guidance should beenhanced to foster strategic retail planning atthe regional and development plan spatiallevels. It should also identify key factors ofanalysis which enable retail trends, transportand land use planning options and the need tobalance town centre and district andneighbourhood function at a time of contractingopportunity for smaller, independent retailers.An appropriate balance of retail function inprosperous and deprived areas should alsoreceive attention, by making the sequential testyet more sophisticated. National planningguidance should more overtly addresssustainability issues, such as the need to reduceCO2 emissions.

Recommendation on revision of PPG 6 to

further encompass social and environmental

factors

PPG 6 should give greater emphasis to thesocial and environmental impact of the location

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Conclusion: a strategic approach to retail regeneration

of new retail development, particularlysuperstores and supermarkets. Preferenceshould be given to sites that not only serve areasthat have no existing stores but also whoseresidents have limited access to alternatives. Carownership, income levels and economic activityindicators could assess this. These criteriashould be included in the sequential test.Conversely, supermarket and other retaildevelopments should not be permitted in areaswhere they would have a detrimental impact onthe success of any area regenerationprogramme, and thus contribute to socialexclusion.

Recommendation on regional planning

guidance

Regional planning guidance (for England, andits equivalent for Wales and Scotland) shouldintegrate need for retail vitality and arearegeneration within the broader context ofintegration of transport and land use. The needto reduce CO2 emissions by planning shouldalso feature strongly in guidance. Parkingcharges at most retail locations, in and out oftown, should be considered, including theopportunity to hypothecate parking revenues tosustainable transport modes.

Recommendation on local authority

development plans

The ‘hierarchical’ framework for retailing whichenables sequential testing should be developed,to encompass the need for support forregeneration, and district and neighbourhoodcentres. Local authorities’ development plansshould encompass retail analysis and 25strategies for retail location and enhancement.

Retail strategies at neighbourhood and

district level

Within the context of the development plan,regeneration areas and any otherneighbourhood concerned about the quality andfuture of its shopping area would be wise toorganise itself to develop partnership andstrategy. At the very least, the partnershipunlocks information and good ideas about howto tackle existing problems, and the strategy canbe used as a bargaining point in discussion withlocal authorities and other stakeholders. Asuccessful retail strategy will have to take intoaccount the viability of retail businesses, therequirements of planning policy and guidance,and the aspirations of the local residents. Everylocal retail strategy includes the followingobjectives:

• increase existing retail provision

• strengthen the provision of associatedservices

• improve the shopping environment

• promote and market the shopping centre.

Recommendation for neighbourhood/district

retail strategies

The decline of local retail viability and vitalityshould be managed and countered within thecontext of both top-down development planningand local, bottom-up retail developmentstrategies, which encompass residents’ social andenvironmental aspirations. Retail developmentpartnerships (or forums) need to engage in atangible process of strategy development to beproductive and meaningful for participants andto achieve positive outcomes.

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These key points have been developed intoan outline blueprint for a local strategyapproach, summarised in Appendix 1.Implementation of local retail strategies willbenefit from assistance from a local councilofficer with specialised retail expertise, and inthe context of emerging Community Planninginitiatives.

Recommendation for local authority liaison

officer on retail enhancement

Every local authority concerned about thequality of retailing in and out of regenerationareas would benefit from designating an officerto develop intelligence and competence in thisarea. The officer would be available to assistlocal retail development partnerships with retailassessment and strategy, to monitor retailviability and vitality, and to promote the casefor retail area enhancement within planning andeconomic development processes. They couldliaise with other stakeholders over key issues ofconcern such as bus transport or public safety.

Recommendation for local retail development

initiatives within the context of the

Community Planning framework

PAT 13’s call for local retail forums is areasonable start, but there is a danger these willbe discredited as ‘talking shops’ unless they arefocused on strategy in a context that allowstangible achievement. This context means theydo not duplicate existing partnership efforts,that they are in a position to drive forward aretail regeneration strategy that has a reasonablechance of success, and that non-councilstakeholders have a straightforward means tointeract with the local council. The emergingCommunity Planning framework, at theneighbourhood or area level, provides the bestcontext for this.

For a local authority, this may mean dealingsimultaneously with numerous retaildevelopment initiatives. Most regeneration areashave existing partnerships and Local StrategicPartnerships (LSPs) are emerging to co-ordinateregeneration activities. There have already beenmany calls for integration of LSPs intoCommunity Planning. Overall, eachneighbourhood would benefit from a singledevelopment strategy and a single organisationalframework for taking this forward.

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Chapter 1

1 Vitality is a measure of how busy a retail areais, often measured in terms of ‘footfall’ ofpassing customers. Viability is a measure of aretail area’s capacity to attract ongoinginvestment for maintenance, improvementand adaptation to remain competitive(NPPG 8).

Chapter 2

1 And a ‘basket’ of six other greenhouse gasesby 12.5 per cent.

2 A sequential approach means that firstpreference in the siting of any retaildevelopment should be for town centre sites,where suitable sites or buildings appropriatefor conversion are available, followed byedge-of-centre sites, district and local centresand only then out-of-centre sites in locationsthat are accessible by a choice of means oftransport, rather than the car alone. (PPG 6para. 1.11).

Chapter 3

1 As to the mechanism of setting rates, all non-domestic property is revalued every fiveyears by an independent valuation officer of

the Valuation Office Agency. The lastrevaluation was 1 April 2000 and the rateablevalue of property represents its annual openmarket rental value as at 1 April 1998. Thevaluation officer may alter the value if hebelieves that the circumstances of theproperty have changed, or the ratepayer maypropose a change in value. If ratepayer andvaluation officer do not agree, the matter isreferred on appeal to a valuation tribunal. Anational non-domestic rating multiplier isthen used to calculate the annual rate bill fora property. It is set annually by theGovernment and, except in a revaluationyear, cannot by law rise more than theamount of increase in the retail price index.Therefore, very roughly, a business will bepaying approximately half as much inbusiness rate as it does in rent.

Chapter 4

1 Arts Factory has 1,300 members, 25 staff andover 100 volunteers. It owns and managescommunity businesses, including in the areasof environmental art, graphic design, videoproduction, woodworking and a gardencentre. Its range of operation, and fusing ofcommercial income with subsidy to fightsocial exclusion, is typical of many CDTs.

Notes

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Acheson, Sir. D. (1998) Independent Inquiry into

Inequalities in Health Report. London: TheStationery Office

Bonnel, P. (1995) ‘Urban car policy in Europe’,Transport Policy, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 83–95

Boots the Chemists (1998) Impact of Out-of-centre

Food Superstores on Local Retail Employment.Nottingham: Boots the Chemists/NationalRetail Planning Forum

Boots the Chemists and Civic Trust (1996) Caring

for Our Towns and Cities. Nottingham: Boots theChemists

Cameron, C. (2000) Chair, UK LA21 SteeringGroup, speaking at Leadership for Well-beingConference, Royal Society for the Arts

Carley, M. (1992) ‘Settlement trends and the crisisof automobility’, Futures, Vol. 24, pp. 206–18

Carley, M. (1996) Sustainable Transport and Retail

Vitality: State of the Art for Towns and Cities.Edinburgh: Scottish Historic Burghs Associationand Donaldsons, Chartered Surveyors

Carley, M. (1999) ‘Neighbourhoods – buildingblocks of national sustainable development’,Town and Country Planning, February, pp. 58–61

Carley, M. and Christie, I. (2000) Managing

Sustainable Development. Revised edition.London: Kogan Page Earthscan

Carley, M. and Spapins, P. (1998) Sharing the

World: Sustainable Living and Global Equity in the

21st Century. London: Kogan Page Earthscan

Carley, M. et al. (2000a) Urban Regeneration

through Partnership: A Study in Nine Urban

Regions in England, Scotland and Wales. Bristol:The Policy Press

Carley, M. et al. (2000b) Area Regeneration in the

21st Century. Bristol: The Policy Press

Castlemilk Umbrella Group (1989) ‘A tale of twoCastlemilks: the community response’,unpublished report

Chase, M., Burnett, J. and Buchanan, M. (1997)The Health of Historic Towns in Scotland.Edinburgh: Historic Burghs AssociationResearch Paper

Colliers Erdman Lewis (1999) Midsummer Retail

Report. London: Colliers Erdman Lewis

Department of the Environment, Transport andthe Regions (DETR) (1996) Revised PPG6 Town

Centres and Retail Developments. London: HMSO

Department of the Environment, Transport andthe Regions (DETR) (2000) Preparing Community

Strategies: Draft Guidance to Local Authorities.London: DETR

Ecotec Research and Consulting andTransportation Planning Consultants (1993)Reducing Transport Emissions through Planning.London: HMSO

EDAW for Tesco (1999) The impact of out-of-town food superstores on local retailemployment: a critique of Boots/NRPFresearch’, unpublished report

Glass, A. and McGregor, A. (2000) Braehead

Recruitment and Training Initiative and Evaluation

– Final Report. Glasgow: Training andEmployment Research Unit, University ofGlasgow

Hillier Parker (1997) The Impact of Large

Foodstores on Market Towns and District Centres.London

References

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Houghton, J. (1997) Global Warming: The

Complete Briefing. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press

House of Commons Environment Committee(1994) Shopping Centres and their Future. 4thReport. London: House of CommonsEnvironment Committee

Hulme Regeneration Ltd (1994) Hulme – a Guide

to Development. Manchester: HulmeRegeneration Ltd

Institute for Fiscal Studies (1995) The Relationship

between Rates and Rents. London: LocalGovernment Research Unit DETR

London Economics (1995) The Economics of

Employment in Grocery Retailing. London:London Economics

Monopolies Commission (2000) A Summary of

Supermarkets: A Report on the Supply of Groceries

from Multiple Stores in the United Kingdom.London: Monopolies Commission

National Retail Planning Forum ResearchGroup (1997) Out-of-town Supermarkets and Local

Retail Employment. London: National RetailPlanning Forum

Robinson, N., Caraher, M. and Lang, T. (2000)‘Access to shops: the views of low-incomeshoppers’, Health Education Journal, Vol. 59,pp. 121–36

Select Committee on Environment, Transportand Regional Affairs (1999) Second ReportEnvironmental Impact of Supermarket Competition.London: Select Committee on Environment,Transport and Regional Affairs

(The) Independent (1998a) ‘Tesco to serve up newjobs for 10,000’, 23 September

(The) Independent (1998b) ‘Historic town set forbattle with Tesco’, 17 December

(The) Independent (1999a) ‘Boots to expand out-of-town’, 9 September

(The) Independent (1999b) ‘Wal-Mart roll-backhits high street’, 14 October

(The) Observer (1999) ‘The store that ateAmerica’, 26 September

Townsend, A., Sadler, D. and Hudson, R. (1996)‘Geographical dimensions of UK retailingemployment change’, in N. Wrigley and M.Lowe Retailing, Consumption and Capital: Towards

a New Retail Geography. Harlow: Longman

URBED (1994) Vital and Viable Town Centres:

Meeting the Challenge. London: Department ofthe Environment

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1 Undertake SWOT analysis of existing

facilities

This should include a land-use survey plottingall the retail facilities in the area. The followingshould be included:

• type of shop

• floor space, to calculate potential demand

• vacant units

• condition of building and surroundingenvironment

• rental levels.

The information forms the baseline for thestrategy. A decision needs to be made regardingthe boundaries of the study because there maybe shops outside the study, in neighbouringareas, whose catchment area extends into thestudy area.

2 Consult owners of retail property

This not only allows their future plans to bedetermined, it also encourages theirinvolvement in the regeneration of the area.There may be potential difficulties if the retailersfeel threatened by new proposals, particularly ifthey have a monopoly in the area. Shoppingcentres may be owned by one company ororganisation, which may have different viewsfrom the individual shopkeepers.

3 Survey residents and local shops over

key issues; analyse gaps in provision

and potential for development

To identify and understand existing shoppinghabits, to find out why or why not residents usethe existing shops and where they do, theirhabits and patterns of expenditure. The surveyalso helps determine what demand there is fordifferent facilities within the area includingservices such as health facilities, hairdressers,banks and local council offices. The case studiesdemonstrate introduction of these uses can allhelp improve footfall and therefore vitality andviability. The local retailers will be able to adviseon shopping patterns in their own outlets. Theresidents’ and shop survey should also identifyother issues such as transport quality,environment, crime and public safety concerns.This will form the basis of the retail strategy but,in order for it to be implemented, it needs thesupport of the community, local authority andretailers.

4 Organise relevant stakeholders

Consultation and surveys put the organisingteam in touch with many stakeholders; others,such as the Employment Service or the policemay need to be contacted. An appropriatepartnership needs to be developed, within theexisting context of partnership or from scratchbut mindful of the need to avoid duplication ofeffort. There is much guidance on thedevelopment of partnership and participation(Carley et al., 2000b).

Appendix 1

Blueprint for a local retail analysis

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Appendix 1

5 Identify suitable locations and sites for

new development

A decision may have to be made on whether toretain existing shops, particularly if they are in apoor condition and suffer from a badreputation, maybe as a result of crime and anti-social behaviour. A balance also has to be madebetween locations that offer commercialviability and the potential catchment area ofcustomers. These sites need to be pursuedthrough the wider regeneration strategy andlocal plan.

6 Promote local or district centre as a

location for new retail development

This promotion has to go further than includingthe sites in the local plan. The sites need to beactively marketed by the local authority andowners. This marketing should be supported bythe data from the residents’ survey todemonstrate potential demand. Owners shouldbe encouraged to provide incentives toencourage new businesses and employmenttraining.

7 Identify critical elements of the

shopping centre

While planning policy cannot protect individualshopping units and prevent competition, it canbe used to protect viability of existing centres. Itis therefore important to identify particularservices or shops that are critical to the viabilityof the centre and seek to protect them inplanning policy and planning conditions onnew development. For example, conditions canprevent supermarkets from opening pharmaciesor post offices.

8 Improve public transport access,

walking and cycling provision, and car

parking facilities

Public transport within the regeneration areamay be limited and/or the pricing structuremay encourage residents to use other largershopping centres because it is no moreexpensive to travel there. Bus companies needto be brought into discussions early to ensureservices and routes at the appropriate time. Thebus station outside the Tesco in Seacroft is agood example.

Access for walk-in and cycling customersshould be reviewed to encourage more visitorsusing sustainable transport modes. Improvementsare frequently linked with increased security toreduce the fear of crime. A feature of decliningshopping centres is ample car parking of poorquality and perceived to be insecure. The ability toattract customers from outside the area has widerbenefits than just making the shopping centremore viable; it can also help to reduce the stigmaof the area. Any increase in traffic levels should becarefully managed.

In certain neighbourhoods, it may beconcluded that access to improved shoppingfacilities can be met by improving, andincreasing access to, existing retail facilities. Thiscould be assisted by encouraging the retailers toprovide free transport and/or delivery services.

9 Consider high street or shopping centre

manager

Potential for appointment of a centre managerto promote the shopping and to co-ordinatemarketing, security and environmentalimprovement – some neighbourhood retailareas may be too small to justify a full-time

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appointment but there can be scope to link up anumber of similar neighbourhoods under onemanager.

10 Target new facilities at potential new

residents and customers; increase

catchment where feasible

While it is important to provide improvedfacilities for the existing residents, the casestudies demonstrate that success of a shoppingcentre will also be dependent on attracting newcustomers, or even new residents throughhousing initiatives, as in Crown Street. Retailstrategy needs to be linked to the overallregeneration.

11 Consider innovative means of

marketing and promotion

The case studies, particularly for Green Streetand Borough Market, suggested manyinnovative means for promotion including useof newspapers, magazines, radio, television,poster and bus advertising, and localpromotions in association with traders.Professional advice should be secured wherepossible.

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Appendix 2

Retail food formats – a guide

The major supermarket chains have eachdeveloped common formats and designs fortheir stores, which are heavily branded. Prior to1980, this was based on similar-sized stores ofaround 3,000 sq. m. In the 1980s, relaxation ofplanning policy, the availability of greenfieldsites and increased demand for economies ofscale drove up the size of stores and increasedthe range of goods sold to include clothes andhousehold goods. The re-emergence of strongerplanning controls in the 1990s has limited theavailability of sites and caused the majorretailers to widen their range of outlets. Forexample, Tesco now has five basic store types(see Table A2.1) with other retailers mirroringsome or all of this range of formats, but with

Asda Wal-Mart now proposing stores of 180,000sq. ft.

The past two decades have also seendiscount traders moving into the market, suchas the UK-based Kwik Save and the Europeantraders Aldi, Netto and Lidl – all of which arefrequently found in regeneration areas. Suchdiscount supermarkets are able to offer lowerprices because they offer a smaller range ofgoods, sometimes of unfamiliar brands, andmore cost-effective (i.e. cheaper) displays andstore environment. There is also the emergenceof the ‘warehouse club’ format, involvingnominal membership and trading from huge,inexpensive sheds, such as Costco.

Table A2.1 The five basic types of Tesco store

Type Description

Extra or Hypermarket Major sub-regional destination store of up to 110,000 sq. ft, in whichgrocery shopping is supplemented by electrical goods, clothing, achemist, toys and other products.

Superstore The traditional out-of-town supermarket of 40,000 to 70,000 sq. ft,offering a wide range of goods with car parking and a full range ofservices.

Compact This is a smaller store but still offering a wider range of goods. It ismore likely to be located within a built-up area but still with carparking available.

Metro Frequently located in the traditional high street or city centre andoffering a limited range of goods with emphasis on conveniencefoods. Represents a return to town centre locations, but with aproduct range oriented to the shopper in nearby employment. Carparking not necessary. Sometimes called ‘Local’.

Express Combines a petrol forecourt and convenience store offering goodssimilar to a neighbourhood or village grocery shop.

Documents

Retailing, sustainability and neighbourhood regeneration