Evolving high streets: resilience and reinvention

This collection of papers explore how ongoing retail trends are impacting high streets and town centres, covering a number of topics - as summarised below - and providing insight into how town centres and high streets might evolve in the future.

Paper 1: High Streets and town centres policy – Anne Findlay and Leigh Sparks

• Retailing traditionally ignored at national policy level, with a focus on land-use planning.
• The need for and type of retail space required is changing.
• Policy needs to focus on making town centres places where people can live, work, play, and be proud of.

Paper 2: Secondary retail during economic crisis and austerity – Anne Findlay and Leigh Sparks

• Secondary centres are often neglected in retail research (i.e. local neighbourhood centres).
• They have generally not been as negatively impacted by the 2008 recession and broader structural changes in retail.
• The community ‘glue’ giving these centres local identity can foster their resilience.

Paper 3: Convenience culture and the evolving high street – Neil Wrigley and Dionysia Lambiri

• We are seeing an ongoing rise in convenience (grocery) retail within the UK.
• Whilst online shopping has been rising, so has the demand for convenience retail at a local neighbourhood level.
• The shift to convenience culture needs to be considered in measuring benefits of town centre first policies.

Paper 4: A helping hand? The contribution of the night-time economy to the evolving high street – Marion Roberts

• There are knowledge gaps around the value of the night-time economy to centres.
• Policy-makers face the challenge of striking a balance between different night-time activities and user groups to foster inclusivity.
• There are opportunities to innovate through converting vacant shops into things like café-bars and micro-pubs.

Paper 5: Managing town centres during the crisis: from retail-focussed management to the experience economy and beyond – Andres Coca-Stefaniak and Shanaaz Carroll

• Consumers expect more than functionality from town centres – their focus is increasingly on the overall quality of the centre experience.
• Town centre managers play a crucial role in transforming town centres.
• More research is needed on the role of town centre management in improving competitiveness and liveability of town centres.

Paper 6: The digital challenge for the high street: insights from Europe – Jesse Weltevreden

• There are several key stages in the evolution of online shopping: the ‘pioneering phase’ (1994-1999) with negligible online shopping; ‘universal internet access’ (1999-2004); ‘expansion of online shopping’ (2004-2009); and ‘fully-fledged sales channel and hyper-connectivity’ (2009-2014).
• Despite growth in online shopping, physical stores are not superfluous.
• There will be an ongoing blurring of physical and digital retail environments.

Paper 7: The consumer journey through the high street in the digital era – Cathy Hart and Angus Laing

• In the backdrop of digital growth, a more holistic appreciation of the total high street experience is needed.
• Depth of consumer data is important in understanding high street experience – including consumer touch points (memorable interactions – functional and experiential) and consumer journeys (routes through physical and digital spaces).
• Consumers visit town centres and high streets to experience emotions and enjoyment, and not just for functional purposes.

Paper 8: The e-resilience of UK town centres – Alex Singleton and Les Dolega

• The concept of e-resilience concerns the vulnerability of high streets to the growth in online retailing.
• Some retail centres will be more vulnerable to the impact of online shopping than others who possess greater levels of e-resilience (e.g. centres with a healthy mix of convenience retail and community services).
• Data and evidence is crucial in informing evidence-based decisions around building greater e-resilience.

Paper 9: Data constraints and the high street crisis – Serena Page

• Data constraints lead to understandings of high street change sometimes being based on assumptions rather than evidence.
• There are inequalities in terms of who can access high street data.
• It is vital to develop a robust and accessible data source on high street performance.