With the continuing metamorphosis of the UK's retail landscape, what are shopping centres doing to ensure relevance and keep their communities engaged? Bethany Whymark reports.
In recent years the great British High Street has faced assaults on several fronts.
With the continued growth of online shopping, out-of-town industrial estates and the battering dealt to retail sales over the past year, shops and shopping centres are having to think creatively about how to keep consumers' attention piqued.
Figures from business advisory firm BDO revealed high street sales slumped for the third May in a row, while the latest
British Retail Consortium-KPMG report revealed retail sales dropped by 0.4% in the month after 0.5% growth in 2016.
As the retail landscape continues to shift, how far do town and city centre retailers need to go to reinstate their position?
Adrian Fennell, partner and head of retail at commercial property agents Roche in Norwich, said: 'Shopping centres very much see themselves as part of our community and therefore will organise things like holding special events, which increases awareness of the centre and also enables them to give something back. That is part of what proactive shopping centres are trying to do.'
Chapelfield owner intu has announced its intention to help the Norwich start-up community with its intu Accelerate scheme, a 10-week programme which offers young businesses expert mentoring and opportunities to pilot their products.
Chief executive David Fischel said the scheme, run in partnership with L Marks, was designed to help the national shopping centre chain 'answer many of the questions that face us and our industry' by scouting for and nurturing new talent and ideas.
Paul McCarthy, general manager of Chapelfield, said: 'We have a wealth of thriving, innovative small businesses in this region, not least in the tech and digital sector.
'What's really exciting about this scheme is the mutual benefit: dynamic young businesses will be supported to explore and grow their ideas, while we at intu stand to learn from some of the brightest and most creative minds.'
Of the city centre mall, Mr Fennell said: 'It is important that shopping centres are current and I think that is where Chapelfield scores. They have a mix of tenants which changes on a fairly regular basis.
'Shopping centres have to evolve to maintain the interest of the consumer, otherwise they go stale.'
Robin Tungate, business connector for Norwich with the Business in the Community programme, said pop-up shops could be a useful way to help new businesses and could help them build relationships with established firms.
He added: 'People relate to businesses that engage with their communities.'
Robert Flint, head of commercial agency at Arnolds Keys, said the culture of pop-up shops, enabling a new business to take on temporary retail space or for an existing business to test the waters in a new area, could be lucrative both for the entrepreneurs and the centres – bringing in a new business for consumers and potentially higher rents for temporary occupancy.
He believes the biggest ongoing change in the trajectory of shopping centres is the importance of leisure offerings, with the likes of Pret A Manger and Krispy Kreme signalling an extension of this away from the typical restaurant market.
He said: 'The Americans are slightly ahead of us. They are seeing that big department stores are not as relevant as they once were and are being split up into smaller units, for start-ups and smaller food and beverage pitches.
'It is about getting a more diverse type of offering. It could be that we start seeing other complementary uses like crèches. That is the way I see things progressing.'
The Arc shopping centre in Bury St Edmunds hosts a mix of shops, restaurants and cafés, and entertainment venue The Apex, but also makes use of its 'promotion area', Charter Square, which has played host to car dealerships and charities as well as a 'beach', fairground rides, an ice rink and European food markets.
Centre manager Colin Roberts said Arc is currently at 100% occupancy and footfall had increased each year since the centre opened in 2009, but admitted the last six months had been 'trying'.
'Retail is obviously changing and I think all shopping centres have had to alter their approach,' he said.
'Retail, leisure and restaurants tend to go hand in hand now because people want the experience. We were fortunate when Arc was built that The Apex was an integral part of the shopping centre. That added enormous interest.'
After being bought in a £9.2m deal in 2015, the Buttermarket in Ipswich received a £25m shot in the arm which has brought in a gym, cinema and bowling alley.
Centre manager Andrew Wilcox believed shopping centres were 'moving more towards leisure'.
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