Impact of foodstore developments in the UK

What is it about?

High levels of out-of-centre foodstore developments in the 1980s and early 1990s were widely seen as threatening the vitality and viability of small and medium-sized centres. The progressive tightening of retail planning regulation in the decade that followed, resulted in the development of more flexible foodstore formats suited to in-centre or edge-of-centre sites. Since then, research has started to suggest a more positive role for such developments than hitherto, and to indicate that they can play an important role in anchoring small centres. The key mechanism underlining this potential positive role is that of linked trips, whereby the spatial externality generated by a foodstore development is transmitted to the existing retail structure of the centre in which development has occurred. Our study provides evidence to suggest that the development of 'new-generation' foodstores in in-centre and edge-of-centre locations increases the propensity of shoppers to combine their shoping trips between foodstores and town centre shops/services. Controlling for shoppers’ individual characteristics, that increase is shown to be over seven percentage points. The exact numerical value is likely to be sample specific, however, to our knowledge, this is the first time unambiguous evidence of the existence of this hypothesised ‘town centre first era’ linked-trip effect has been demonstrated.

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