Rain on the parade

Self-preservation Mega-centres have been crushing small towns – now this week’s BCSC report suggests how they hit back. By Samantha McClary Storm clouds are gathering over Britain’s small towns. For almost a decade, government policy has concentrated on directing retail development away from massive out-of-town locations and back into town centres. But despite these moves the shopping experience in many of the UK’s smaller town centres is poor, if not non-existent. And, perversely, it is the success of retail-led regeneration in cities such as Birmingham, through the successful Bullring redevelopment, the proposed scheme for Liverpool’s Paradise Street and the new retail quarter for Sheffield that have contributed to the decline. According to a British Council for Shopping Centres report launched this week at its Manchester conference, the concentration of urban renewal in these conurbations is choking the revival of the smaller towns. “People want to go to places where they can buy what they need and enjoy themselves. You get that in larger towns and larger centres,” says John Abel, managing director of Liberty International subsidiary Capital Shopping Centres, which has schemes in Cardiff, Glasgow and Newcastle, among others. So what needs to be done to rebalance retail development? Can small towns compete with out-of-town shopping centres and the bright lights of the big city? What could be built? And, if they build it, will the retailers come? Government refocusing on smaller towns As well as focusing retail development on town centres, the ODPM has recently encouraged research to answer these questions. Speaking at the BCSC conference, planning minister Keith Hill confirmed that the government was turning its focus to smaller towns. “Retail-led regeneration has helped to revitalise many cities. The challenge is to harness this energy to tackle the centres of smaller cities and towns. This is a shared vision – our role is to help you to make it happen.” The BCSC report reveals a number of opportunities for the retail-led regeneration of smaller towns. But it also deplores the hurdles that developers and local authorities have to overcome to put together such schemes. As the number of older people in the UK rises, small towns are in a position to offer older shoppers an alternative to noisy, family-oriented shopping malls, the report suggests (see p122). If they can get their retail offers right, through a combination of chain stores and independent shops, these towns can even gain valuable senses of identity and character. The viability of such regenerations should also be improved by the predicted increase in town centre populations. Some developers, such as Centros Miller and Modus Properties, have already latched on to this potential. But while both specialise in smaller town centre schemes and are reaping the rewards, it is partly because they have been lucky enough to come across helpful local authorities desperate to restore their towns to their former glory. “There is nothing easy about doing town-centre schemes,” says Centros Miller managing director John Laker. “But if they are in the right place and priced right they can be very successful.” Winning planning consent is the first great hurdle for developers, but the next is getting local councils to use their compulsory purchase order powers. Laker says all these factors extend the time it takes to get town-centre schemes up and running, and put developers off work in smaller towns. “If councils want something to happen in their towns then they should not be too restrictive with section 106 agreements. If the cost is too much, then developers won’t come in. At the end of the day, we want to make a profit.” But, despite the problems, Laker is confident that retail-led regeneration can work in small towns. “There is a future for them,” he says. “Why should the big towns have it all their way? Every town has potential. Not all towns are suitable for regeneration schemes, but something can usually be done.” Brendan Flood, managing director of Modus Properties, says smaller town projects have often delivered better profits than the larger schemes the company has tackled. Small town success story For example, Modus bought the Castle Dene shopping centre in Peterlee, County Durham, for £18m several years ago. After regenerating the area, adding 30 national multiples and improving the infrastructure and several public properties, the centre is now worth more than £75m and attracts a footfall of 110,000 a week. And, adds Flood, the story has been similar at most of its other schemes, which include Pendle Rise in Nelson, Lancashire, Winsford Cross in Winsford, Cheshire and Windmills in Smethwick, West Midlands. Laker and Flood both say that getting the right anchor retailer into a small town is vital for the success of a regeneration scheme. Small town centres are unlikely ever to appeal to the likes of John Lewis and Fenwicks department stores, as they are just too small. For smaller towns, says Flood, getting one of the big four food retailers is a must. Alongside a supermarket, it is also important to get Wilkinson, Next or Argos as anchors. If one of more of them agrees to being part of a town centre scheme, then the rest tend to follow. But if getting retailers into a small town centre was as easy as that, the bigger centres would not be stealing so much business from their smaller cousins. “Retailers will always look at being in towns,” says Laker. “But you have got to make it affordable for them. Providing grant money can be a way to do this.” So there are great difficulties when local authorities fail to co-operate with developers and refuse to provide financial support. Andrew Ogg, president of the BCSC, says local authorities are shooting themselves in the foot when they consider small town schemes from a planning perspective, rather than a development perspective. He says local authorities need to make less onerous section 106 demands and ought to be prepared to employ their CPO powers more readily if small town centres are to see the benefits that retail projects are bringing to the larger city centres. Without such support, schemes will fail to materialise in the smaller centres, because developers already have to settle for lower margins in such locations, and any extra costs are just a further disincentive. Although there has been “leakage” from town centres to larger city centres and out-of-town malls, neither of the bigger shopping destinations are real competition to smaller town centres that perform well. The BCSC report finds that consumers visit town centres about once a week. And although they spend only an average of an hour in smaller towns – compared with three to five hours when they visit a larger centre – this average of 50 visits a year greatly outnumbers the visits they make to out-of-town malls, which works out at just two trips a year. For Ogg, this is why there is hope for small town centres. If they play to their strengths – convenience, ease of use and character – and are hampered by fewer planning burdens, the sun could shine on smaller towns again. Living in the shadow of the mega-centres Walsall town centre Looking to find its own way, at last Walsall, once a wealthy town, is now suffering from industrial decline and from competition from the city-centre shopping offering, namely Birmingham’s Bullring, which is just 8 miles away. On top of that it faces competition from the Merry Hill shopping centre, also 8 miles away, and from other town centres in the West Midlands and from nearby upmarket towns, such as Lichfield. Now Walsall is having to pull out all the stops to reverse the decline that has seen footfall in the town centre ebbing away since the 1980s. As a result of this tough competition, and despite it having a population of more than 250,000, the town has seen a leakage of comparison expenditure from its catchment area of 60%. Accordingly, consumer demand for the town centre is limited and attracting interest from investors is difficult. But the town is now making a concerted effort to regenerate its centre into a lifestyle location that offers the best of both worlds – the infrastructure of a city, with easy access to the countryside. In March, the Walsall Regeneration Company was created, and it has taken over responsibility for the regeneration of the town. A planning framework is now being prepared by Roger Tym & Partners, with particular emphasis on the town centre. Bexleyheath Doing very nicely by not competing Having an out-of-town shopping centre on your doorstep is hardly the perfect scenario for a small town. Having Bluewater on your doorstep ought to be the death knell. But in spite of being just 6 miles from this massive modern shopping centre, Bexleyheath town centre is performing surprisingly well. The town was earmarked for development as the strategic centre of Bexley when the borough was formed in 1965. As a result, the single-storey Broadway shopping centre opened its doors in the late 1970s. The scheme, developed by the council and Norwich Union, contains a number of major chain stores, including Woolworths, Marks & Spencer and Bhs. So when Bluewater was first proposed in the early 1990s there was considerable concern that it would take trade away from the town centre. The council’s initial reaction was to attempt to attract a department store. However, it soon became clear that this was not feasible. Reports from Hillier Parker and URBED in conjunction with Donaldsons found that 12-14% of business could be lost from the town centre because of Bluewater. The reports recommended the appointment of a town centre manager to promote the centre, the upgrading of public areas and lighting, and the development of a marketplace where people could meet for coffee during the day and entertainment in the evening, which transformed the town. What has helped Bexleyheath to continue to trade well, despite it being dwarfed by a massive out-of-town centre, is that it does not try to compete with Bluewater. The town centre realises its potential as a convenient shopping hub. Figures show that visitors to Bexleyheath shop for just an hour, compared with three to five hours at Bluewater, but visit the town at least once a week, compared with once every six months at Bluewater. Because of that, the town provides a range of shops aimed at regular shoppers, leaving the high-end comparison shopping experience to Bluewater.