A New Vocabulary for Understanding Retail Change in Scotlands Town - PDF document

A New Vocabulary for Understanding Retail Change in Scotland’s Town Centres? Professor Leigh Sparks, Institute for Retail Studies, University of Stirling www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com Scottish Government Context • SNP Government; widely popular • Town Centre Review and Town Centre Action Plan • Community Empowerment, Social Justice, Equality and Inclusion • Very Anti “League Tables” and pejorative descriptors www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com 1

Retail Change in Scotland’s Town Centres • Fraser Review of Town Centres and Town Centre Action Plan • Town Centres have more than a retail problem and the solutions are beyond retailing • But retailing and retail change a vital component we need to understand www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com Measurement of Retail Change in Scotland’s Town Centres? • Scottish Government • Local Government • Other Providers – BRC – SRSM – Springboard Footfall • Local Data Company www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com 2

Our Interest in Change Measurement in Scotland • Scotland’s Retail Summits • ESRC/LDC/University of Stirling PhD Studentship • Scotland’s Towns Partnership (STP) • Understanding Scottish Places (USP) www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com Scottish Retail Summits • Summit One 2013 – Ground Breaking – Media Coverage Extensive – Measurement Development; Persistent vacancy – Explanations • Summit Two 2014 – Expanded and enhanced coverage www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com 3

The Wrong Vocabulary? www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com The Vocabulary of Vacancy? • When we talk about vacancy what are we really talking about? • When we talk about vacancy change what is it that we have measured and what does it mean? www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com 4

Falling Vacancy Occurs How and Means What? www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com New Concepts in Vacancy? • How do we define and measure? – Structure – Diversity – Vacancy – Churn – Resilience – Persistency • And on what basis? – LFL (e.g. LFL Vacancy) www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com 5

The ESRC/LDC/University of Stirling PhD • The research questions focus on: – What are the appropriate measures beyond ‘simple’ vacancy to understand the changing structure of retail in towns and town centres? – What do these new measures show for Scotland’s towns at national and local level? – How can these new measures and understandings inform new management of town centres and places? www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com Understanding Scottish Places (USP) • Launched 29 April 2015 by Margaret Burgess MSP • Partnership working • Consistency and comparability the key principles • 479 towns in Scotland with over 1000 people • No league tables and no pejorative labels www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com 6

USP Methodology • Defining the geography of towns to be included in USP Geography • Setting the context of each town using the 2011 Census to build a typology Socio-demographic typology Size Classification • Grouping towns by resident settlement size • Exploring how towns inter-relate and are independent/dependent Inter-relationship model www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com USP Inter-relationship Model www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com 7

Ambitions and Workplan • Developing the measurement concepts through the PhD and testing these in towns • Scottish Summit V3 and other potential LDC work (inc USP analysis) • Could we ever get LDC coverage to equate to USP? www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com Conclusions • We’ve all done some great stuff in the last few years with LDC and other data providers • But we’ve only scratched the surface • If we set the framework right then we can combine even more and develop our sophistication and impact • But we have to become more consistent and accurate in delivering our material www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com 8

Contact Points Web: www.stirlingretail.com Email: Leigh.sparks@stir.ac.uk Telephone: 01786 467384 Twitter: sparks_stirling www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com www.stirlingretail.com 9