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Santa Claus is coming to town…and who is joining him?

Following last year's ‘cancelled Christmas’, many town and city centres across the UK and Ireland are buzzing with festive cheer as consumers return to more ‘normal’ celebrations and shopping habits.

However, with the appearance of the Omicron COVID-19 variant and the further restrictions announced this week, including the advice to return to working from home, the reintroduction of face mask requirements in shops and Christmas party cancellations: can Christmas save our centres?

Our town and city centre experts discuss the impact of this year’s festive season and whether a new set of resolutions are needed for our centres.

Capturing the festive expenditure

As long as the new COVID-19 variant doesn’t scupper our plans, studies indicate that people are looking to make up for the challenges of last year, with an extra splurge on presents and celebrations to make 2021 a Christmas to remember. In my view, centres need to ensure they seize the opportunity and capture this expenditure away from online retailers. Festive events, as a collaborative approach between town and city centre stakeholders, can draw people back in and enable businesses to showcase the significant retail and leisure presence that remains in our centres, and reclaim expenditure.

Markets, pop-up shops and services 

Reflecting on Cat’s point, I see markets and pop-up shops, including Christmas themed ones, offering a prime opportunity for independent and local small businesses and services to test the waters at an affordable price. Providing local people with the opportunities to develop their interests and ideas can help create local distinctiveness that attracts income and investment. A diverse population of varying ages and backgrounds also helps create a vibrant town full of a variety of goods, services and traditions.

Christmas drink or sit this one out?

For me, whilst centres are now on the road to recovery, with footfall levels up significantly from 2020, most centres have continued to suffer from office workers still working from home and this is unlikely to change following the return of working from home guidance issued from Monday in England which is generally supported by the governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. While centres may no longer resemble the deserted ghost towns seen at the height of the pandemic, this will keep workers and their spending away from centres in the run up to Christmas 2021. Centres are still experiencing a reduction in spin-off trade during the working week, particularly within the food and beverage sector. Sadly the success of the Christmas trade for this sector could be lost due to the Omicron variant and the threat of increased safety protocols dampening the festive fun. Working from home is likely to remain the new business as usual into the New Year until a time when the pandemic subsides and brings office workers (and their Christmas gift tokens) back into town centres.

Community spirit 

With our town and city centre stores declining due to continued trends of ever-growing competition from global online retailers, I think there is an opportunity for our centres to be repurposed and once again become the glue that binds our society. The pandemic, and Christmas, has reminded us about the importance of human interaction, whether that be meeting friends for a mulled wine or speaking to a local shop assistant about which tie to buy granddad. But how can our centres create this community spirit all year round? For me, this is about variety in our centres, mixing independent traders alongside the national retail names, repurposing vacant stores into homes, work spaces, health and community uses, giving centres a local character, a reason for people to want to be a part of it and a foundation for community spirit. 

Christmas is local

As commuter patterns change, the local centre will become increasingly important in meeting customer needs. Supporting Vicky’s point, reforms to the Use Classes Order, particularly the establishment of Class E has removed the need for planning permission to move between some uses and has meant space can be adapted more quickly to keep up with the pace of change. The role of the local centre is changing rapidly and COVID-19 has accelerated the concept of the 15 minute neighbourhood. A place not only for shopping, but for socialising, for working and having access to nature and green space. My wish for Christmas is that the planning system helps facilitate this shift, with enough agility and flexibility to allow local centres to thrive.  

Creating a destination

The run up to Christmas turns our town and city centres into lively destinations. People are attracted to the experience that the festive period brings - whether it’s grabbing a hot chocolate at the Christmas markets, watching the lights be switched on or going to see a pantomime at the hippodrome. For me, we need to start reimagining our centres as destinations, and creating a successful town centre combines this with all the points my colleagues have highlighted. Centres need to look at the full experience integrating culture, technology, entertainment and public realm to give people a reason to be excited to visit our centres all year round.

For more information on our work in town centres please contact a member of the team. Click here to read more about our insights on the sector.

9 December 2021