Lord of the realm

The pandemic, growth of online and evolving consumer and occupier behaviour has very suddenly called into question the role of high streets in our towns and cities.

The typical retail offer prevalent in the majority of UK town centres is no longer, on its own, a strong enough incentive to regularly engage large proportions of the UK's population. Increasing amounts of redundant retail space means town centres must – and in some cases already are – adapting to evolving consumer wants and needs.

Whilst these opportunities include retail, more innovative developers, landlords and local authorities are increasingly utilising leisure activities and improved public realm to create engaging town centres with a unique sense of place for shopping, living, working, exercising, raising families and having fun.

Public Realm
The power of great public realm cannot be underestimated. For example, whilst Tate Modern's world class collection of art and prime situation on the South Bank attracted six million visitors in 2019, Victoria Park in east London received nine million visitors in the same year. With a coffee shop, large open space, play facilities and a boating lake, Victoria Park provides a place to relax, exercise and meet friends. This highlights the appeal that simple concepts in pleasant, relevant space can have in terms of generating repeat visitation. The visitation generated in turn attracts occupier interest, with the park now hosting repeated markets, food fairs and events, further increasing appeal and visits.

Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council have recognised the need to utilise public realm to create relevance and attract visitors, rather than rely only on retail. Castlegate shopping centre is set to be demolished in May 2022, to be replaced with an ambitious riverside park by 2025 (see image above). The five-acre parkland will feature trees, performance areas and a land-bridge to the River Tees, creating a compelling proposition for a wide swath of local residents with the potential to drive both regular visitation and high dwell times.

Public realm can now be regarded, in many ways, as the new anchor for town centres. With great open spaces, walkways, parks and plazas, town centres become a draw in themselves, creating an environment for people to create and share interactions and experiences that the digital world cannot offer. Retail and F&B can and should play a valuable – and potentially profitable – supporting role, but fundamentally audiences need to be attracted and engaged to generate the repeat visitation that will support profitable retail and F&B businesses.

Pedestrianisation
Making high streets and town centres easier to navigate on foot have proved to be a key feature of successfully improving public realm. Along Regent Street in London, the pavements were widened to allow for social distancing through the pandemic. This has become a permanent fixture with landscaping and wayfinding introduced to improve the aesthetics of the bustling central London thoroughfare.

In 2000, Piccadilly, Stoke-on-Trent underwent a £10 million investment to make the area more pedestrian-friendly; this led to a 30% increase in footfall. In 2016, Altrincham introduced a new market and invested in public realm improvements which led to a 25% increase in footfall and reduced retail vacancies by 22.1%. Strong opposition from occupiers and residents to some schemes highlight that pedestrianisation is not always appropriate for all areas however the need to create green, sustainable environments without the noise and hazards caused by motorised vehicles is undeniably crucial.

Leisure
Town centres have been historically slow to embrace leisure activities – occupier demand for large floorplates and low rents have typically seen most occupiers select edge of town sites and out-of-town retail and leisure parks. Though allowing for establishment and growth of leisure propositions, this has led to sub-optimal propositions, often lacking in parking facilities, adjacencies and ambiance required to maximise consumer experience. With dwindling demand and rental income from traditional retail occupiers, high streets are finally embracing leisure as a key way of revitalising town centres and creating a new way of driving relevance and footfall.

Defining themselves as a local cinema experience, The Light have predominantly opened in town centre locations including Addlestone in Surrey, Thetford in Norfolk and Sittingbourne in Kent. Similarly, Boom Battle Bar have extended their presence from Glasgow through Cardiff and Norwich to Eastbourne on the south coast. Such leisure operators can both benefit from the vacant space and lower rents available in town centres whilst providing a compelling new reason for key groups – such as families and young professionals – to engage with a town centre offer that, without their presence, has little to no appeal.

If new and improved leisure offerings are augmented by joined-up, experience-led public realm there is an opportunity for town centres to revitalise their relevance to a wider proportion of consumer groups and drive the repeat visitation required to prove their relevance once again.

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Jo Biddle