improving shopping access for people living in deprived neighbourhoods

103 Pages·1999·0.24 MB·English

NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR NEIGHOURHOOD RENEWAL
IMPROVING SHOPPING ACCESS
FOR PEOPLE LIVING IN DEPRIVED
NEIGHBOURHOODS
A PAPER FOR DISCUSSION
POLICY ACTION TEAM: 13
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
PAT 13: IMPROVING SHOPPING ACCESS FOR PEOPLE LIVING IN
DEPRIVED NEIGHBOURHOODS
Foreword from Yvette Cooper, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Public Health
Neighbourhood renewal is about putting the heart back into communities. It’s not just
about bricks and mortar. It’s about the people who live there and enabling them to live
their lives in a way which most people take for granted. It’s about generating a sense of
belonging to and being part of a community. Vibrant local shops can play a vital part in
this process.
Thriving local shops can provide employment for local residents and a pathway into
new skills and training opportunities, can reduce crime and can improve health by
providing a range of quality goods, including food, at affordable prices. These cover the
four key outcomes we want to achieve from our neighbourhood renewal strategy. They
are also key determinants of health as described in our health strategy “Saving Lives:
Our Healthier Nation”. If we are to make any headway in meeting the challenging
targets we have set ourselves in the four priority areas of cancer, coronary heart disease
and strokes, accidents and mental health, we have to tackle social exclusion and make it
easier for people living in poor neighbourhoods to make healthy lifestyle choices if they
wish.
I would like to thank Policy Action Team 13 for their hard work in producing this report
which I am pleased to introduce and issue for discussion. Improving shopping access for
people living in deprived neighbourhoods is an area that Government has not
endeavoured to address corporately before. We are breaking new ground. While we
have drawn on a wide range of expertise both inside and outside Whitehall, we now
want to gather more views on our proposals.
The problems encountered by some neighbourhoods in accessing retail services are
diverse and complex and we have suggested some imaginative and innovative ways of
tackling them. Our report underlines the need for locally developed strategies in which
all stakeholders, including the community, play a full part in the process and take
ownership. We also recognise that if they are to be sustainable over time, responses to
improving shopping access have to be commercially viable in the long term. So, in
some places, communities may decide that a healthy living centre is the most
appropriate focus for collective action to address the issues, as well as giving
opportunities, for example, to increase access to retail services through the internet, or
to develop strategies to enable better access to fruit and vegetables. In others, making it
easier for small retailers starting up in deprived neighbourhoods to get loans may be the
way forward.
The report doesn’t pretend to provide all the answers to improving shopping access in
deprived neighbourhoods. It contains many recommendations on which your views are
now sought. We hope to prompt discussion and widen the debate. We are inviting you,
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therefore, to put forward your views, comments and suggestions by 14 January 2000.
These will then be gathered together, considered and the results will be fed into the
national strategy on neighbourhood renewal as it develops over the next few months.
YVETTE COOPER
PAT 13: IMPROVING SHOPPING ACCESS FOR PEOPLE LIVING IN
DEPRIVED NEIGHBOURHOODS
It would be helpful if you could bear the following questions in mind in putting together
your comments and response.
• Do you agree with the thrust of the report? Why? If you don’t agree, how would you
have tackled this issue differently?
• Are there any areas that you think should have been covered within the five topics
which have not? What are they?
• Are there too many recommendations? In each of the five topic areas, which five
recommendations would you rank highest/of most importance? Are there other
actions that you think we have missed? What are they and why do think they would
be successful?
• What other areas, aside form the five themes discussed in the report, do you think
needs considering? How do you think this could be done?
• Are there any areas you would like to be involved in following up this report?
The Executive Summary draws out what the PAT considered to be the key generic
issues and actions. The main body of the report also contains many additional
recommendations related to specific issues. These are listed altogether after the
executive summary. The PAT’s responses to two public consultation exercises – one on
the charging levy for the Foods Standards Agency and the other on the Small Business
Service – can be found at Annex 12 and 13 respectively.
Please feel free to photocopy the report and pass it on to anyone else you think would
want to comment.
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Please send your comments/response by 14 January 2000 to the PAT 13 Secretary,
Room 634, Wellington House, 135 – 155 Waterloo Road, London, SE1 8UG.
PAT 13: IMPROVING SHOPPING ACCESS
CONTENTS PAGE
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1
PROPOSED ACTION POINTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 13
I INTRODUCTION 22
II TERMS OF REFERENCE 22
III APPROACH 23
Further work 24
Community based and community run initiatives 25
Multiple retailers 25
IV DEFINITION AND PROBLEM ANALYSIS INCLUDING 26
• A community’s perspective 26
• A small retailer’s perspective 27
• Research base 29
• MORI Poll 29
• Common themes which emerged 30
• Difficult issues 31
V REVERSING THE TREND 32
VI THE GOAL 32
VII THE KEY ELEMENTS TO ACHIEVING OUR GOAL 33
A: A local retail strategy 33
B: Proactive planning – this is discussed under proactive planning 36
and regeneration;
C: Crime reduction and the fear of crime; 42
• Retail crime 43
• Crime reduction and fear of crime 47
D: Improving business support for small retailers; 51
• Business skills 51
• Access to finance 54
E: Easing business burdens on small retailers. 55
• Easing fiscal burdens 55
• Regulatory burdens 59
VIII NEXT STEPS 61
I X MONITORING THE IMPACT OF IMPROVING SHOPPING
A CCESS 62
X RESEARCH 64

I NDEX OF ANNEXES

A nnex 1 – PAT 13 Membership 66

A nnex 2 – Mapping Groups Membership 67

Annex 3 - Community based and community run initiatives 69

A nnex 4 - Private Sector support – case studies 72

Annex 5 - Community development and involvement 75
Annex 6 – Coventry City Council’s ‘Area Co-ordination’ Initiative 77
Annex 7 – Business in the Community 79
Annex 8 – What skills and knowledge do small retail businesses need? 80
Annex 9 – Public sector support for small businesses 81
Annex 10 – Private sector support 89
Annex 11 –The National Micro Retail Organisation 90
Annex 12 – PAT 13 response to the consultation on the proposals for a levy 92
scheme for the Food Standards Agency
Annex 13 – PAT 13 response to the consultation on the Small Business Service 94
PAT 13: IMPROVING SHOPPING ACCESS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
I INTRODUCTION
1.1 Improving the neighbourhood in which people live, both in the physical
sense, and also by reducing the fear of crime, can increase the sense of
community. It can also have a major effect on well being and a beneficial
impact on the physical and mental health of those who live there. Healthy
neighbourhoods is featured as one of the settings for work flowing from the
forthcoming “Our Healthier Nation” White Paper. Our work on improving
shopping access can be seen as expanding and complementing this work and
so improve the quality of life and the health and wellbeing of people living in
deprived neighbourhoods.
1.2 The strong principles underlying this report on improving shopping access are
the need for local communities to be consulted, involved and listened to in
defining and meeting their needs. The need for an evidence based approach,
drawing on best practice examples provided by technical experts, is also vital.
1.3 We have, therefore, built our report around the two main principles which we
consider critical to improving shopping access in deprived neighbourhoods:-
• the need for locally-developed strategies, with the local community
playing a full part in the process and working together with local retailers;
and
• the need to produce solutions that are commercially viable in the long
term, building on good practice.
1.4 Our report, of which this is the executive summary, represents the ideas put
forward during PAT 13 discussions with a wide range of stakeholders. It is
intended as a discussion document on which we wish to receive comments,
views and ideas that can be fed into our continuing work and contribute to the
integrated strategy on neighbourhood renewal.
II THE CURRENT POSITION
2.1 The majority of shops that traditionally served those living in deprived
neighbourhoods were small, independent, convenience type stores. While the
number of superstores in this country has increased from 457 in 1986 to 1102
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by 1997 , some eight independent shops disappeared everyday between 1986
and 1996. The number of independent stores has declined by almost 40% in
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the eleven years between 1986 and 1997 . For people on low income,
shopping journeys by car and the average distance travelled to shops has
increased.

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The Impact of Large Foodstores on Market Towns and District centres DETR 1998
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Nielson Market Research, May 1998
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2.2 Many of these small, convenience shops closed down because they were not
commercially viable. While the factors are complex and vary from one
neighbourhood to another, we have identified three main reasons
undermining the commercial viability of small independent stores operating
in deprived neighbourhoods. These are:-
• falling and low local demand – where there is a shop, people often don’t
want to use it and, those that can take their spending power elsewhere, do;
• crime and the threat of crime – unsightly security measures and threat of
personal safety put customers off using local shops; and
• competition – lack of local competition from alternative local
convenience stores sometimes leads to overpricing and provides no
incentive for improving quality resulting in the provision of poor quality
goods.
2.3 The cumulative negative effect of these factors, and others such as poor
transport, bootlegging etc., can result in what has become an all too familiar
sight. The once vibrant local shopping centres or neighbourhood stores that
provided a safe place for the local community to meet and access a range of
services to meet their everyday needs have mostly disappeared. Boarded up
small shops on street corners or in small neighbourhood parades, with only
the locals knowing which are open for business and which are not, remain.
And only people left with no other choice shop there.
2.4 Those from minority communities who run small shops, in particular, can be
the focus for a considerable amount of crime. Even minor incidents can be
expensive and stressful if repeated frequently – squirting superglue into locks
is just one example. Also there are examples of serious, destructive,
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expensive and frightening episodes . It’s hardly surprising, therefore, that
many shops close and their traders leave. Those that remain often struggle to
survive and provide a service of variable quality, a limited range of goods and
prices sometimes a good deal higher than most supermarkets. In
neighbourhoods where car ownership is low and public transport inadequate,
many families have no choice but to use these shops.
2.5 Most of the bigger retailers we spoke to said that the size of the
neighbourhood we were focusing on, around 3,000 to 4,000 households, was
too small to sustain commercially one of their supermarkets. Population
density was generally too low, servicing access was often inadequate and
there was generally insufficient customer parking space to attract significant
custom from outside the neighbourhood. Nevertheless, all the major retailers
we spoke to expressed a willingness to contribute expertise. More details can
be found in the main report.

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Crime and Racial Harassment in Asian-run Small Shops: the scope for prevention. Crime Prevention
Unit: Paper 15
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III REVERSING THE TREND
3.1 From our work so far, we have concluded that the current trends in
neighbourhood retailing can be reversed. Using the very latest information
and technology, neighbourhood stores have increased their turnover by as
much as 40% with no capital outlay. This was simply by putting the right
product in the right place and giving it the right amount of selling space. In
controlled tests, where the store had been refitted as well, sales increased
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from £700 to £10,000, £4000 to £20,000 per week .
3.2 Take, for example, a community of 4,000 households, with a total average
weekly spend of £275,000 (i.e. on average £66 per week). They need spend
only 10% of this at the local shop, and its turnover would be £27,500 per
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week, over £1m a year - a healthy business. This data suggests that small
communities can sustain small stores if they sell the right goods and are
supported locally.
IV THE GOAL
4.1 Based on the initial discussions we have had with communities, retailers and
their representatives, we set ourselves the following goal:-
to support the provision of accessible retail opportunities which:-
• respond to locally identified needs in an integrated way;
• provide a range of quality goods at affordable prices;
• offer facilities which are vibrant, viable and sustainable.
4.2 Our report concentrates on the key factors affecting the viability of local
retailing and action that can be taken to make our goal a reality. We now seek
to widen the debate and would be grateful for more views and ideas.
V THE KEY ELEMENTS NEEDED TO ACHIEVE OUR GOAL
5.1 Our report is based on the need for local communities to be consulted, involved
and listened to in defining and meeting their needs. The key elements to
achieving our goal, which are considered in more detail in the following
sections, are:-
A: a local retail strategy;
B: proactive planning;
C: crime reduction and the fear of crime;
D: improving business support for small retailers;
E: easing business burdens on small retailers.

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Mace Blueprint for Success 1998
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Community Owned Retailing 1999
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A. A local retail strategy
The Problem
6.1 There is no established practice of developing a retail strategy when local
regeneration strategies or plans are constructed; consequently, there is no
single person, organisation or body responsible for pulling together the views
and needs of local key stakeholders (including the retailers themselves) so
that retail needs can be planned and implemented successfully at the local
level.
The way forward
6.2 Working with appropriate agencies, communities should be given support
and encouraged to develop their strategy for improving access to shops and
services in their neighbourhood.
6.3 One mechanism for delivering a retail strategy would be through the
development and establishment of local retail forums as part of the
neighbourhood management package that PAT 4 is currently considering.
Such forums would enable communities and key stakeholders, including local
traders and landlords, to work in partnership to:-
• audit the current local retail provision, identify local assets, including
long term vacant properties, overlaps and gaps; use tried and tested
retailing industry models to assess demand;
• develop and agree a local strategy for improving access to shops and
services, in the context of district, town, city and regional wide plans
and in the context of achieving a longer term health gain as described in
the forthcoming white paper “Our Healthier Nation”;
• work together to implement, monitor and review the strategy.
6.4 It will be important that landlords, whether they are the LA, housing
agencies, private sector organisations or individuals, are all part of the
development of the strategy and all sign up to it.
ACTION 1: (pages 33-34)
We recommend that the work of PAT 4 in developing models for neighbourhood
management should explore the potential of local retail forums in developing local
retail strategies at the neighbourhood level. PAT 4 should also consider how these
local forums might link with other agencies to input into the development of retail
strategies as part of authority-wide community plans. There are links here with PAT
17: Joining it up locally.
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