When retail guru Mary Portas mounted her dashing steed to battle the malaise on Britain’s high streets, few in Bedford imagined their town would be centre stage.
At the end of May, the town was nominated a Portas Pilot Town – one of only 12 successful bids in the first round of approximately 370 entries – securing a £51,000 grant in the process. A second round of 15 additional pilots will be announced at the end of this month.
A question mark remains, however, over whether it will bring real benefits or if it is little more than a feel-good gesture by a government struggling to manage retail decline.
Despite having the hallmarks of a public employment programme, there are definite, albeit limited, benefits.
“This is about the enthusiasm it generates. It shows that people care about the high street,” says Dave Hodgson, elected mayor of Bedford. “Where there is so much competition for shoppers, how do we make Bedford a place that people want to come? But it is not about making Bedford a shopping destination – it is about making it a destination.”
The limitations of the slender £51,000 grant are not lost on Hodgson. “It is about an aspiration,” he says. “Whatever you think about the amount of money, the column inches already generated are better publicity than spending a couple of million. This gives people belief.”
A Town Team action group, led by Bedford Business Improvement District, formulated a bid based on responses it received from operators of pop-up shops.
“We were not trying to reinvent the wheel. We basically had a very positive response to our pop-up shop initiative, but there was not enough about how to translate that into sustainable, successful businesses,” says Christina Rowe, director of Bedford BID. Rowe was previously a property manager at the 1.3m sq ft thecentre:mk in neighbouring Milton Keynes, one of the town’s largest competitors.
The £51,000 will be used to establish an advice centre for new and existing businesses, provisionally called Bedford Portas Pilot. It will provide support in areas such as creating business plans, online marketing and customer services. It will also be used as a platform for fledgling businesses to trial ideas in vacant units, receive training and, hopefully, move into permanent premises.
The ultimate objective of the pilot, however, is to increase the frequency and duration of shoppers’ visits and the amount they spend in town.
Mentorship schemes have also been established where retailers, such as Boots and Marks & Spencer, and organisations like the British Property Federation provide training to budding retailers. Being part of the Portas process allows town centres to tap into the pooled resources of organisations such as the British Retail Consortium, BCSC and the British Arts Council.
“It is about talking-up Bedford and creating an appetite in people to want to come here,” says Rowe. “It is difficult to measure the benefit, but we are talking about a change in attitude.”
The town is in close proximity to Milton Keynes, Cambridge and Northampton, which either have stronger retail offers, are “destinations” or both.
Retail study
Bedford BID is looking into retail leakage but does not have precise figures. The presumption is, however, that these competing towns do have an effect. In 2007, Donaldsons completed a retail study for St Modwen’s now defunct Bedford Town Centre West scheme, which concluded that the town sat lower in the retail rankings than its neighbours, achieved significantly lower rents and softer yields, while these other towns were all increasing their offers though development.
The difficulty of projects such as the Portas Pilot is that its effect pales into insignificance when juxtaposed with the kind of step-change Town Centre West would have delivered. St Modwen had consent for an ambitious 400,000 sq ft of retail space around the bus station and Greyfriars areas, but it was ditched because of the crash in property values.
The Portas brand provides a degree of leverage in persuading people to work together – particularly for the BID to negotiate with landlords in addressing issues it deems detrimental to its retail complexion.
The Portas review recommended landlords gain representation on BIDs, open only to retailers. Housing minister Grant Shapps called the pilots a “vanguard of a high street revolution”. Part of that revolution was having structures in place to allow new businesses with no covenant strength to flourish.
The Town Team will seek to establish a “contract of care” between landlords and commercial tenants, with the broad objective of rejuvenating tired retail areas and attracting spend to the centre. Detail is light at this stage but it could be achieved through new lease codes.
“They are bringing landlords into the fold,” says Andrew Clarke, head of agency with Bedford surveyor Kirkby & Diamond. “Sometimes it might be attractive to a landlord to give a new user a go. It is a sprat to catch a mackerel approach.
“If there is a proactive organisation, like the pilot body, seeking to market their properties, a landlord has nothing to lose by being part of that process.”
The specific point in the Portas review relating to this seeks to change lease structures from upward-only rent reviews. However, Mark Hunter, managing director of Hunter Property Fund Management, which claims to be the only specialist high street retail fund and operates extensively in Central Europe where rents are adjusted against CPI, says: “In periods of deflation, rents go down but you do not necessarily see more vibrant town centres there.”
Bedford has the second lowest vacancy rate of any town, according to the council. Some question why vacant units were such an integral part of its pilot. “That has already been regulated and I do not believe it is a predominant issue. Empty rates killed that off a long time ago. If a landlord cannot sign up a multiple retailer, he or she will let it to an independent,” says Hunter.
He adds: “Successful towns have dynamic local authorities and energetic leadership who never miss an opportunity to promote their cities. It always comes back to strong local leadership, with a clear plan that others can buy into. Otherwise, it risks becoming a talking-shop.”
The pilot largely seems to be an effort to leverage the name Portas – nothing motivates disparate groups to pool together more than the allure of celebrity.
Schemes such as Bedford’s £50m Riverside North regeneration project will be the real movers. Although the plan outlines only limited retail – a maximum of 30,000 sq ft alongside an hotel, restaurants and residential – it will attract visitors to an underused part of the river frontage, generate footfall and increase the time spent in the town centre. Preferred developers Coplan Estates and Denne are due to submit a planning application in the autumn.
Hodgson concludes: “The publicity around Portas will raise the profile of Bedford in the right way and can do nothing but good in that sense.”
CSC gets charter contract
The saga of Watford’s Charter Place shopping centre took another twist last month when the council announced Capital Shopping Centres had been appointed preferred developer.
CSC will lease Charter Place from the council and incorporate it into its existing 725,000 sq ft Harlequin Shopping Centre, the freehold of which is also owned by Watford borough council.
The plans will involve refurbishing and reconfiguring the existing 323,000 sq ft centre, adding 50,000 sq ft and creating a new market for existing traders.
The move comes at the expense of developer Henry Boot, which was given preferred status in June 2011. It will be paid £500,000 severance by the council, which Watford claims will be recouped within two years.
Prior to this, London & Regional was in the fray, but it withdrew following a change of business strategy.
Anthony Woodcock, a surveyor with Aitcheson Rafferty, says: “Watford originally wanted CSC on board but an agreement couldnÕt be reached. Charter Place looks tired, and Watford is such a major shopping location for the area that its refurbishment can only benefit the town.”
