Our small towns need big data

COMMENT Big retail destinations are readily accepting data in their evolving strategies. Their size makes them seem obvious priorities, but these locations actually account for only a small fraction of the 3,000 centres across the UK. Schemes in our smaller town centres represent around one-third of physical retail space and draw from a catchment with an average 10-minute drive time. We know that the insight from our city centres cannot be reliably transferred to smaller locations from the differences in shopper behaviour we have seen. Throughout the pandemic community assets showed significantly more resilience when it came to visitor retention, catchment penetration and returning engagement post-lockdown. Community schemes saw a 42% visitor decline versus 73% in destination schemes. Catchments shrunk by 37% for destination schemes, while community scheme catchments remained largely unchanged. Post-lockdown engagement with leisure and F&B operators surpassed 2019 visitor numbers by up to 73%, while visitor levels to similar occupiers in destination schemes continue to lag behind 2019 levels. Live data essentially shows us the behaviour undercurrent of a location. With our Visitor Insight platform we are able to zero in on very specific areas and understand footfall and flow across different pedestrian routes. At this level we can create a detailed picture of how people are using their local town amenity differently to large city centres. Data comes to the fore as we begin to explore the demand, and potential impact of reintroducing civic uses to our high streets. We have used our platform to drive asset strategies which range from leasing and on-the-ground asset management to large-scale redevelopment and portfolio financing. Shaped data at this level can build the most tangible business cases for occupiers, but also for public funding and investment. Examples range from proving the case for the relocation of a health centre, which drove an extra 1m visitors a year to a scheme, to informing the design and implementation of a £250m town plan. It is helping clients make measured, robust decisions – reducing the risk of initiatives that are not aligned or flexible for the long term. But it is also enabling incredible, yet “unobvious” outcomes. Stockton, for example, is creating a landmark event and green space throughout its public realm. It can give decision makers the confidence to concentrate on culture and heritage, avoiding the decisions made in the past that led to generic, unsustainable town centres. As a business and research team focused on putting data at the heart of all our decision making, we struggled to find a solution in the market that supported our need for insights into how people interacted with spaces and places. To answer this, we have developed an independent VI solution alongside a market-leading technology partner. The pandemic has shone even more of a spotlight on the need for and usefulness of big, live data. The differentiator for using this is to look at shoppers’, residents’ and workers’ entire “journeys” – what are their needs and obstacles and what are their stories? We have been developing our platform with this perspective in mind, to create an accessible way for stakeholders to get under the skin of their town centres or portfolio. Because smaller locations have been historically sidelined for funding and their future potential for generating social change, we believe there is a far stronger argument for understanding them. When it comes to ‘levelling up’ the UK regions, big data helps identify the disparity, see what behaviour it motivates across groups and then measure the impact of interventions. Isabelle Hease is chief executive of Visitor Insights