PRIMA Planning for Retailing in Metropolitan Areas
Metropolitan Dimension to sustainable retailing futures Metropolitan strategies Retailing in city and town centres will be a primary component of any longer-term metropolitan strategy. It will generate the need for supporting transportation and other infrastructure and related public and private sector services and employment in centres. It is, therefore, the first and most important strategic spatial planning and development assessment that will be made in the planning of metropolitan centres. It is for this reason that METREX has developed the Planning for Retailing tool, PRIMA, to support a wider recognition of the significance of the Metropolitan Dimension to European urban affairs. PRIMA contributes to the effectiveness of metropolitan spatial planning and development practice at the metropolitan level.
Metropolitan Dimension to sustainable retailing futures Metropolitan retail catchment areas The European Urban Audit (2008) has identified some 127 larger urban areas with populations over 500k. These are Europe s Metropolitan Areas and they contain over 200m of Europe s 500m population. Such major metropolitan areas will comprise localities with their own identity and social and economic needs, including retailing. Localities will sit within wider metropolitan sectors, which supply higher-level services and employment opportunities. The metropolitan area itself will attract mobile incomers as its economy changes and develops. The first step in the use of PRIMA is to define the Metropolitan Area in question and its component local and metropolitan retail catchment areas. It may be that existing local authority areas (municipalities, communes, etc.) can be used initially to define local retail catchment areas and that groupings of such authorities can be used to define metropolitan retail catchment areas. PRIMA requires sub-division of the metropolitan area where there are significant centres out with the metropolitan core. The data that will inform these judgments will be information on retail expenditure patterns, which will normally be established by household surveys.
Metropolitan retail catchment areas continued Existing city and town centres provide the focus for metropolitan urban life and can accommodate a range of social and market services. They enable multi-purpose journeys and can be public transport orientated. Retailing is a core function of centres that is under pressure from out of centre, car orientated, forms of retailing. The balance between the renewal and regeneration of existing city and town centres and the need for new centres is a crucial aspect of the vitality and viability of urban life. This is the Metropolitan Dimension to sustainable retailing futures.
Core components of PRIMA The three core components of PRIMA are, Retail expenditure by catchment area Retail floorspace and turnover by catchment area Quantification of the balance between retailing demand and supply over catchment areas
1 Retail expenditure by catchment area Retailing expenditure within metropolitan areas will be generated by demographic change and household formation, inward and outward migration and household and personal expenditure patterns. A retail capacity tool such as PRIMA provides a means of comparing per capita consumer expenditure in a defined area with the turnover of the existing and proposed retail floorspace.
1 Retail expenditure by catchment area continued Population and household forecasting Demographic change may result in population decline but there may nevertheless be more households if household size is reducing. Conversely, demographic change may result in population increase but there may be fewer households if household size is increasing. In reality all these factors will be taken into consideration in the process of household forecasting over the longer-term. Household forecasts will also have regard to inward and outward migration. This will usually be driven by economic change and the relative attractiveness of the metropolitan economy over the longer term. Such an assessment will have regard to metropolitan economic trends and economic policy for the purpose of exploring housing futures. Population and household forecasts will normally be available from national, regional or metropolitan sources.
1 Retail expenditure by catchment area continued Disposable income and expenditure patterns PRIMA is based on per capita consumer expenditure but this will also be related to household income and expenditure. For example, per capita expenditure will depend on the socio-economic circumstances of households and the extent to which household members contribute to or benefit from the overall household income. It will also depend on the overall household expenditure on common items such as housing costs. Such factors will have an impact on the individual per capita disposable income of household members. Data on per capita income and expenditure patterns, on convenience (food, drink & other non-durable items) and comparison (non-food) goods, will usually be derived from national data. PRIMA can be used to assess both the convenience and comparison sectors.
1 Retail expenditure by catchment area continued Retail expenditure by catchment area The household survey information, mentioned above under Retail Catchment Areas, as well as enabling local retail catchment areas to be defined, will also enable the scale and significance of expenditure flows to be identified, principally those to the core metropolitan centre from local catchments within the metropolitan area; those between local catchments in the metropolitan area; and those to centres outwith the metropolitan area.
2 Retail floorspace and turnover within catchment areas Retail floorspace will vary from local convenience shops to major town and city centre comparison stores and out of centre retail parks. The turnover per square metre will vary between such categories of retailing and the size of store. Data on retail floorspace in local, town and city centre and out of centre stores, operators and their respective turnover ratios will usually be derived from municipal records, specialist consultancies and in-house outlet surveys. Outlet surveys identify operators of stores by type of goods sold. Sales areas in stores are calculated by applying ratios that discount the gross floor area to net sales area. These ratios vary between the different floorspace categories and operators. For example, the net sales area of a large foodstore is likely to around 60% of the gross area, compared with 80% for a non-food store in a retail park.
3 Balancing retailing demand and supply over catchment areas PRIMA enables assessments to be made of prospective levels of expenditure on convenience and comparison goods in the catchment areas of town and city centres within metropolitan areas. These can then be compared with the turnover capacity of the convenience and comparison goods floorspace. A surplus of expenditure over turnover would indicate a possible need for additional floorspace or, possibly, new centres. A surplus of turnover potential over expenditure would indicate the prospect of floorspace rationalisation and the possible need for alternative activities and floorspace uses in a city or town centre.
Working example Diagram 1 on Balancing metropolitan retailing demand and supply illustrates the PRIMA process in principle. STEP 1 - Per capita expenditure STEP 2 - Catchment expenditure STEP 3 - Available expenditure STEP 4 - Floorspace STEP 5 - Catchment turnover STEP 6 - Excess of expenditure over turnover Diagram 2 shows how retailing demand and supply can be balanced in practice.
Acknowledgement PRIMA has been devised by the METREX Secretariat. Maxwell Cowan, METREX Projects, has been the primary source of knowledge and expertise. He has worked at the metropolitan level for many years. If an Expert Group on Housing is established then he can be available to support its work. He will also be available to advise individual authorities on retailing issues. PRIMA is being made available for METREX Member use, on line, by Tim Page, Head of CITC (Communications, Information Technology and Computing). He will similarly be available to support the work of an Expert Group on Retailing and individual authorities on the use of PRIMA on-line. METREX 125 West Regent Street Glasgow G2 2SA Scotland UK Phone/fax - +44 (0) 1292 317074 E-mail secretariat@eurometrex.org Web site - www.eurometrex.org October 2012