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E., In The Literature Review, These Three Shopping Centres Will Be Presented ...

e., in the Literature Review, these three shopping centres will be presented with an overview of each shopping centre, in terms of where and why it was built, and the overall impact it has had on the local economy, and the receipt it has gained from the local community. In the Results/Analysis section, these three shopping centres will be discussed in greater detail and an in-depth study of The Oracle in Reading will be presented in order to provide an assessment of the impact of new, in-town shopping centre developments on the existing retail trade in the area, and the subsequent effect of the building of these in-town shopping centres on planning policy guidelines.
In terms of what happens to the traditional town centre when a new in-town shopping centre opens up, as we have seen, few studies have been undertaken looking at the effect on existing retail and planning policy, but Oughton et al. (2003), bb et al. () and Lowe (2005) have attempted a first pass as this exercise. Other studies of the effects of building shopping centres on the existing town centre retail trade focus on the effects of out-of-town shopping centres, not in-town shopping centres, and, as such, this literature will not be considered here as part of this dissertation. Some of the results from studies of in-town shopping centres have been discussed, in particular for The Oracle in-town shopping centre in Reading. In terms of the data that is normally collected for assessing the impact of in-town shopping centre developments on the existing town centre retail trade, normally data on trading performance pre- and post- the construction of the in-town shopping centre would be collected, and compared, as a direct measure of the effect of the in-town shopping centre on the existing retail trade. This, however, as we have seen, can be problematic, and not a true reflection of the actual effect of the building of the in-town shopping centre, due to such things as a lag effect and changing shopping patterns in general, with researchers suggesting that there are very distinct phases to be assessed when thinking of the impact of an in-town shopping centre development on existing retail stores i.e., an early phase versus a mature phase, whereby the effects of confounding variables can be assessed.
A study by Bennison and Davies (1980) on the effects of the Eldon Square development in Newcastle-upon-Tyne demonstrated that there was a general increase in activity in the area following the building of the in-town shopping centre, with an increase in retail spending in the town centre retail outlets following the building of the in-town shopping centre. This, however, was a localised effect, with the effect only covering primary retail space, leaving those retail outlets in secondary positions within the town centre vulnerable to declines in sales and, ultimately, closure.


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