Assess the impact of out-of-town shopping centres on the regions in

which they occur (40)

Retailing and related services have changed dramatically over recent years.
Traditionally, shops selling convenience goods were based in residential and
suburban areas where the local population could easily access them by foot
and centres selling specialist and comparison goods were found in the city
centre, accessible by all those in the immediate city. However, from the
1970’s onwards, there has been a large-scale development of out-of-town
shopping centres, which are huge complexes built on the edges of major
conurbations and accommodate many ‘big name’ high street stores under one
roof, as well as on-site leisure and restaurant facilities. Their growth and
success has been made possible by the fact that because the outskirts of
cities are typically cheap to build upon, large amounts of free parking has
been built on most of them to accommodate the increased car use of an
increasingly mobile Britain. At present, there are now around 10 of these
regional shopping centres in the UK, such examples include Cribbs
Causeway in Bristol, Merry Hill in the West Midlands, and the biggest in
Western Europe: the Metro Centre on Tyneside. Using some of these
examples I will assess the social, economic and physical impacts of out-of-
town shopping centres on the regions in which they occur.

If one were to start with one of the most beneficial implications of an out-of-
town shopping centre on it’s surrounding area, it would be the mass-scale
creation of jobs, and not just in retailing, the upkeep of such a centre would
require additional jobs ranging from domestic to administration and
management. With this theory in mind, it can be applied to the example of the
Mall in Cribbs Causeway; the fact that it has been built so deep within a
suburban setting means that for many of the surrounding population, it is the
nearest source of large-scale employment. This means that both parties
benefit; the surrounding areas of Patchway and Little Stoke benefit from
slightly increased rates on employment and at the same time retailers within
the Mall benefit from an almost continuous flow of workers. Benefits don’t just
extend to the immediate areas around such centres, the inner city areas also
benefit in that because there are less people travelling towards the city centre,
there is a reduced amount of traffic and therefore congestion in the Central
Business District and inner city areas. Another social benefit is that because
the elderly typically live in such suburban areas, they are in close proximity of
a safe and secure shopping environment.

However, there are many effects of regional shopping centres that have
negative implications upon the surrounding area’s social stability. First of all,
due to the sheer size of such centres, most of them are massive contributors
to issues of urban sprawl, especially examples such as the Mall in Cribbs
Causeway; due to the fact it was built upon a Greenfield site, and not reused
derelict land. Another issue is that they can be seen as socially divisive. Town
centres, with their public transport systems, are accessible to virtually
everyone; the out-of-town centres can be difficult and expensive to get to for
those without cars. Therefore, they can exclude the poor, the under 17’s who
cannot get lifts, single parent families and so on. Development, as far as
these centres are concerned, has also caused conflicts amongst local
residents. For example, during the construction of the Merry Hill shopping
centre in the West Midlands, there was much hostility when building of the
first phase of the shopping centre commenced on green space, rather than on
the former ‘Round Oak’ steelworks site. Despite protests from citizens who
regularly used the green space for recreation, the Merry Hill Farm site was
destroyed in the first phase of development. The Brownfield steelworks site
was not built on until the later stages of a new development project.

As a centre of commerce and retailing, perhaps the most important issues to

discuss are that of economic impacts of such shopping centres on their
surrounding areas. For instance, in the 1980’s the government created a
number of ‘Enterprise Zones’ that gave incentives to firms wishing to set up in
areas affected by a downturn in manufacturing. The Brierley Hill area had
suffered the loss of the ‘Round Oak’ steelworks, and it was hoped that other
manufacturing firms would be encouraged to move into the area. Such
incentives included relaxed planning rules and a 10-year period exempt from
business rates. Developers took advantage of the lack of restrictions by
making the Merry Hill shopping centre, rather than the industrial units initially
aimed for as part of the Enterprise zone policy. While this had permanently
sealed the fate of manufacturing jobs in the area it had at the same time
created hundreds more in the retail and service sector. Another economic
benefit is that, under the right conditions, such centres can pose healthy
competition to other areas, which respond with their own developments. One
example is that of the ‘Touchwood’ centre in Solihull, which is the other side of
Dudley from Merry Hill. Since the construction of Merry Hill, Solihull as a
whole began struggling to compete with the modernity and popularity of Merry
Hill, therefore the Touchwood centre was created as a gesture of healthy
competition. It had made pre-emptive pacts with major corporations such as
the Solihull Metropolitan council, the John Lewis Partnership and Jobcentre
plus, as well as smaller local retailers to help modernise the area and inject a
huge amount of capital into the local economy.

However, such success stories of capitalism at work have not applied

everywhere. When Merry Hill centre opened, a large number of large retail
chains decided to move their stores from surrounding towns into the new
shopping centre. This left a large number of empty premises behind, which, in
turn, meant that many shoppers abandoned town centres for the Merry Hill
centre, which led to a large downturn in trade for remaining shops, affecting
their viability. Most affected was Dudley, the largest nearby town. The wound
was deepened then the local council announced the introduction of parking
charges in the town centre, turning more shoppers to Merry Hill, where
parking remained free. On the other side of Dudley, the construction of the
Touchwood centre has only made things worse for the town centre, with yet
another competitor drawing trade away. Even if Dudley wanted to redevelop
it’s town centre and pose a sufficient competition to Merry Hill, it simply does
not have the physical capacity to meet the demand for additional comparison
floor space and it is understandable that there is a lack of market confidence.
A similar scenario exists in Bristol city centre, in which the Mall in Cribbs
Causeway has drawn trade away from the Broadmead shopping district,
causing many retailers to either close or relocate. However, the area has
recently undergone huge redevelopments, with the inclusion of the new Cabot
Circus shopping centre being built right next to Broadmead. The issue here is
that despite attracting wide interest from retailers due to incentives such as
free shop floor rental for a period of time, the centre soon found itself losing
said retailers after the period had expired, particularly having witnessed a lack
of business due to the unfortunate timing of the economic downturn.

Such large and influential centres of commerce also have major effects on the
physical makeup of the surrounding areas. For example, in March 2010, work
began in Bristol on the new East-West link road connecting the A38 through
Filton and Patchway to the M5 and the Cribbs Causeway shopping center. Ian
Piper, Director of Development and Regeneration at SWRDA said the work
would help the area to thrive. “At the moment there is a missing link between
the A38 through Filton and Patchway and the M5 and Cribbs Causeway”, he
said. “The Regional Infrastructure Fund investment will allow the developer to
build the road now – before the homes and business facilities are built. Easing
congestion on the local road network and creating dedicated bus routes will
benefit local residents and help businesses thrive”. This redevelopment is the
most recent in a whole series of improvements to access routes, until now,
over £10 million has been spent on upgrading the nearby junction 17 of the
m5 and it’s surrounding road network. In terms of effects on the environment,
many regional shopping centers have taken steps to reduce their impact on
the environment. For example, Merry Hill has undergone redevelopments in
order to achieve high levels of ‘green efficiency’, which entails power
management and utilization of natural lighting. It has been successful in that
the center has been the first to be awarded a Building Research
Establishment Environmental Assessment Method accreditation. More direct
benefits to the surrounding environment is the future plans to build a ‘leisure
plateau’ which will comprise mostly of green open space. Also, the Mall at
Cribbs Causeway has taken steps in it’s initial build to replenish some of the
greenery lost in it’s construction, for instance, 2,500 trees have been planted
as well as over 200,000 shrubs.

However, and quite predictably, all out-of-town shopping centers have a large
negative impact on the physical makeup of the surrounding area, some much
more than others however. One of the most important points to make is that
both of the regional shopping centers we have discussed were built on
Greenfield sites, completely destroying tens of thousands of square meters of
open space and animal habitat despite the fact that developers, particularly
those of Merry Hill, had the initial option to build upon a Brownfield site, and
reuse derelict land, retaining green spaces such as Merry Hill Farm.
Continued development of the Mall in Cribbs Causeway and surrounding
areas such as the Venue (a leisure park next to the Mall) had also led to an
increase of traffic through the neighboring suburb of Patchway. During peak
hours of the day, congestion is common on the main access routes through
the suburbs, which of course has increased pollution in the area, of course
this does not settle well with the local population.
To conclude, we see clearly how there are distinct winners and losers in terms
of out-of-town shopping centers, but are they really worth the loss for
everyone? The case of Merry Hill being built over a derelict manufacturing site
that was intended again to be another manufacturing site is almost a
metaphor the fact that the suburbs aren’t the place for manufacturing
anymore, Britain has become a service based economy and the majority of
the local population benefit far more from close by specialist shopping than
manufacturing headquarters. Besides, now that there are more women and
under 16’s at work, such easily accessible employment on a large scale is
welcomed by most. Even supply chains benefit from their new clients being
based near very widely accessible access routes. The real decline to worry
about is the decline of the ‘green suburbs’. Of course, we’ve discussed how
such regional shopping centers have taken plenty of award winning
approaches towards achieving a predetermined criteria of ‘green-ness’, yet it
does not reverse the encouragement such centers have had on urban sprawl,
and the eventual loss of large areas of open space and country side.