As communities ride the rollercoaster from COVID to the cost of living crisis, the People & Places Partnership is taking a fresh look at tracking national town centre trends.
The aim of this new study and the guidance it will create, is to analyse and understand national trends to help inform local decision-making. The new work will have a twin focus on tracking the evolving impacts on town centres of the cost of living crisis, and assessing indicators of changing pride in place as part of the Government’s levelling-up agenda. The new work will serve as a successor to the People and Places Partnership’s leading guidance in tracking national town centre trends to help in adapting our town centres for recovery
Business performance and use
This work in tracking national town centre trends, begins by looking beneath the skin of a key aspect of the socio-economic value of our town centres: the performance and use of town centre businesses. Not only are town centre businesses the life blood of the local economy, research also shows that their diversity is a key indicator for monitoring pride in place.
Key metrics of business performance and use are provided by the monthly retail sales data for Great Britain collected by the Office for National Statistics. This data set provides estimates of retail sales in volume and value terms, including seasonally adjusted figures. Key figures quoted in the media from this data will typically be month on month percentage changes in the retail overall retail index, which includes activities such as online retail and fuel sales.
At People & Places, we want to look beneath these headlines to try to understand the trends in the type of ‘lived-in’ smaller towns and city neighbourhoods where we work. We are tracking national town centre trends by drilling down on two niche sets of retail data as key indicators of everyday, town centre performance:
- Specialist food stores sales including butchers and bakers
- Household goods stores such as furniture
Specialist food stores sales
Here we share our analysis of some of the available data for specialist food stores. Although shops such as butchers, bakers, greengrocers and an occasional deli or fishmongers, only typically make-up a small percentage of town centre businesses, they can have a key role in generating regular town centre foot-fall. These food retailers are also a key component of the lived-in towns and city neighbourhoods where People & Places supports locally-led revitalisation.
Looking at the volume of specialist food retail sales for September 2022, it is evident that there had been a gradual decrease in performance when compared to the previous month (-0.2%), quarter (-0.5%), or year (-0.7%). The volume of food sales for September 2022 was nearly 1% less pre-pandemic levels (-0.95%).
Longer-term picture
The longer-term picture for specialist local food stores is more positive. There has been a gradual increase from an index level of 86.7% ten years ago in quarter 2 of 2012. Indeed, sales volumes reached a then, new high for the decade in the last full quarter before the pandemic (2019, quarter 4), then falling to 71.4% during the first quarter of the pandemic (2020, quarter 2).
From COVID to cost of living crisis
Specialist food sales recovered during the latter stages of the pandemic to reach a new high for the decade of 105.9% (2022, quarter 1). This was probably due to a combination of a shop local effect as fewer people commuted, and restrictions on dining out that saw customers spending more on home dining. The subsequent decline in the volumes of specialist food sales throughout 2022, is probably indicative of the impacts of the cost of living crisis -though sales values are more buoyant as customers ‘pay more, for less’.
Comparison retails’ peaks and troughs
Trends in the sales of comparison goods in smaller town centres are harder to track using national data that is likely to largely come from larger centres and out-of-town retail parks. Here we use the retail sales data for the volume of household goods stores sales, to get an indication of trends affecting ironmongers, furniture and furnishing shops that are an important part of smaller, lived-in town centres and city neighbourhoods.
During the pandemic, household good sales had reached a decade-topping high in quarter 2 of 2021 with a huge increase on prior levels achieved prior (17.8%). It would seem everyone was using their spare time to focus on home improvements.
Household good sales in general, dipped dramatically in 2022. By September 2002, the volume of household goods stores sales showed a marked decrease when compared to the previous month (-1.4%), quarter (-9.70%), or year (-6.9%). The volume of sales had dropped back to more than 3% less of pre-pandemic levels (-3.2%).
Wider metrics for cost of living and pride in place
At the People & Places Partnership, our intention is to continue to develop and share a wider set of metrics for tracking national town centre trends. We will have an eye to understanding the impacts of the cost of living crisis and monitoring changes in pride of place stimulated by the Government’s Levelling Up activity. We will also monitor other national tendencies such as changing active travel trends with a place leadership focus.
Adapting & applying locally
The next step that we will advocate is to take this knowledge base gained from tracking national town centre trends and test it locally to guide future recovery planning. This involves understanding what has changed by drilling down on the detail locally. At People & Places, we are specialists in working with councils and communities to achieve this. Such local data and understanding can form the basis for future monitoring and management of town centre revitalisation.
Further guidance and support
Send us an email to services@people-places.net if you would like a copy of our national town centre trends report -the most recent version is published in November 2022.
To make the most of opportunities to boost town centre pride in place, read the detailed report from the People & Places Partnership on putting together a winning Shared Prosperity Fund plan.
The People & Places Partnership has pulled together a wealth of free-to-use resources on its web page focused on ‘changing places‘, including a comprehensive methodology for working with communities in the national Revitalising Town Centres Toolkit prepared for the Local Government Association. This includes success stories from around the country such as our work to support Selby’s route to recovery and revitlisation and in preparing a safe & warm welcome-back to town across 12 East Suffolk communities.
