Real Estate, Place Adaptation and Innovation within an integrated Retailing system (REPAIR): End of Project Report Retail Change and Transition in UK City Centres

The UK retailing industry is experiencing unprecedented structural change on the High Street, evidenced through increasing occupier business failures, property vacancies and market uncertainty and instability. The global pandemic during the early 2020s has only served to accelerate changes to established consumer behaviour. In response, this End of Project Report, Retail Change and Transition in UK City Centres, presents the findings of a mixed method study called Real Estate, Place Adaptation and Innovation within an integrated Retailing system or ‘REPAIR’ which investigated the changes experienced across the retail cores of five UK cities – Edinburgh, Glasgow, Hull, Liverpool and Nottingham – between 2000 and 2021.This large-scale study drew on the ‘adaptive cycle’ retail model, whereby the word ‘transition’ explains the current situation in city centres better than the popular quip ‘death of the High Street’. The report describes the ‘adaptive cycle’ model and outlines the research approach, before introducing the case study city centres and the study’s four separate work packages, which examine different aspects of the property market and built environment. 25 recommendations are then presented as part of the study’s wider findings and conclusions.