The Retail Centre Boundaries are an openly available suite of data products representing the location, extent and function of retail agglomeration areas across the UK. The product contains multiple files to describe the spatial boundaries, catchment zones, local open indicators and a retail typology.
Retail centres, or agglomerations, are identified based on the clustering and connectivity patterns of individual retail units over space. They have been delineated using consistent methods and data, where possible, for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The spatial granularity and detail of retail agglomerations provide a national picture of retail spaces and hierarchy. Developing indicators that can help to understand their characteristics and economic performance can provide useful supporting information for policy in identifying underperforming and/or thriving retail centres across the UK.
Content
Retail Centre Boundaries
Boundaries are delineated using openly available and geocoded retail-specific unit locations and land use. Self-contained mutually exclusive tracts of consistently-sized hexagon geometries are overlaid on retail clusters, with a network-based algorithmic fine-tuning based on absolute sizes and densities.
The retail centres are developed consistently for all countries across the UK. In total, there are 6,423 agglomerations of retail across the countries.
A hierarchical classification based on retail count, density and ranking within the respective local area serves to identify the prominence of each retail centre and captures variation between regional centres, market towns, small local centres, shopping centres and retail outlets (among 11 classification tiers). Conventional place names are drawn from the Ordnance Survey (OS) Open Names file.
Retail Centre Catchments
The Retail Centre Catchments are spatial delineations of both drive-time and walking-time distances from the centre of each retail centre not classified as “Small Local Centres”. The different results from the hierarchical classifications of the retail centres are assigned different maximum walk/drive times, these are used with the road network to delineate the catchments.
These times are listed in the Variable Dictionary: Catchment Durations file below.
Retail Centre Indicators
Aggregate indicators are generated for the largest retail centres in the UK - those with an underlying retail count of at least 50 units. Indicators for these retail centres are developed from multiple data sources, focusing on their composition, diversity, vacancy, material deprivation and e-resilience, which are useful to better understand the characteristics and economic performance of the retail centres in the UK.
A series of indicators have been developed based on openly available data, and are available for download below. Additional indicators are available as a safeguarded data product (see the link in the resource section below) with information on shop vacancies, shop types, composition and diversity.
The product contains indicators at the retail centre
level, which are split into three domains: diversity, E- Resilience and deprivation.
- Diversity – a variable summarising key differences in terms of diversity between centres, representing an aggregate ‘clone town’ score (index) based on the ‘Clone Town Britain methodology’.
- E-Resilience – series of variables summarising the relationship of retail centres to online shopping, including the index of supply vulnerability, online exposure index, and an E-Resilience index (created by the other two indices).
- Deprivation – two variables summarising the relative deprivation of their associated drive and walking time catchments, measured by combining national deprivation indices (Index of Multiple Deprivation) and retail catchment data (drive time catchment and walking time catchment).
Quality, Representation and Bias
Retail agglomerations are built on a series of heuristic rules based on spatial density and size using openly available point retail locations. Point locations of retail specific units from the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) and OpenStreetMap (OSM) were used as the basis from which clusters of retail spaces were delineated.
In Scotland and Northern Ireland, where VOA data is not available, OSM data forms the sole foundation of retail spaces. In England and Wales, VOA point data form the foundation which is then supplemented by OSM retail land use space where coverage may be missing.
Retail centre catchments are delineated by varied drive/walk time along the road network from the centroid retail centres across the UK. The retail centres are based on the Retail Centre Boundaries dataset. Retail centre catchments are delineated only for those retail centres not classified as ‘Small Local Centres’ - the most common type.
Similarly, the indicators do not cover all 6,423 centres. To ensure security, indicators were developed for those retail centres not classified as ‘Small Local Centres’ and containing over 50 LDC units (to exclude areas not surveyed by LDC). In addition, indicators were not developed for any centres in Northern Ireland (due to a lack of LDC data) and for one retail centre in Manchester due to an incorrect boundary. NA values are given for retail parks and shopping centres for variables in the diversity domain of variables, as such indicators would not prove useful in these instances.
