Retail business representatives consistently and almost universally assume most of their customers arrive by car. However, not only do many customers access businesses on foot, by bike, and by bus, they do online shopping as well. Steve Dawe looks at the recent third edition of the Pedestrian Pound, by Living Streets, to explore how the most pedestrian-friendly areas of shopping centres often prosper compared to trafficked roads.
In the beginning, people walked
Early human beings walked to fulfil all of the functions of their lives. Today, communities we have created are constructed with networks suitable for traffic, but rarely for pedestrians, cyclists, wheelchair and mobility scooter users – and especially not for small children or the elderly. Little attention is paid to the quality of areas for walking, nor is there a guarantee of frequent repairs to pavements when needed.
The third edition of The Pedestrian Pound offers a concentrated research summary and challenges general failures and assumptions about how our settlements work, and what may be done to improve quality of life.
City centres are residential
Retail businesses are only about one third of addresses in our town centres. More than half of what we may think of as our local town or city centre is typically residential. So decisions which businesses may want, about more parking, might well need to be about how the resident population of such an area is able to meet its needs: on foot. But shopping centres are most successful where there are banks and post offices, illustrating that intervention is needed to secure this.
If people are going to walk, shop and use town centre services, some realisation of the current context is needed.
Walking in a current context
About 30% by value of shopping is now online; numbers of shopping trips are reducing. Retail footfall has not recovered from the Covid-19 lockdowns and continues to decline in shopping centres. Retail failures and vacant units remain high.
The value to households of remote working and flexitime appears to be one factor. But the basic question for your local shopping centre is whether it has the variety and accessibility to prompt use.
Evidence in The Pedestrian Pound suggests walkability and greener areas are important. Good cycling networks also matter if the intention is to make shopping centres linked parts of networks – not the broken links of both walking and cycling routes created by accommodating traffic.
Walking is increasing, accounting for over 30% of trips – including to access public transport. But an active travel budget boosted recently by the less than princely sum of £100mn nationally is not recognising the importance of walking and cycling as transport modes. Nor can government claims about active travel or climate policies stand scrutiny when transport of all types is the largest carbon emitting sector.
Business perceptions about pedestrianisation are often wrong
Business fears about pedestrianisation are misplaced. In extensive research, pedestrianised areas with good access to public transport show better retail results than trafficked roads. In practice, businesses should be campaigning for extensions to pedestrianised areas with good walking, cycling and public transport links.
Seating matters, and more so in a society with people living longer. There are, in my own experience, very big differences between the quality of pedestrianised centres in England. Few are as good as Norwich, York or Canterbury; some have really small pedestrianised areas, like Oxford.
Pedestrianised areas show increases in commercial and private home rents. This is a mixed blessing and raises an issue The Pedestrian Pound might have addressed: the need for rent controls to assist small businesses particularly. This would help to maintain diversity in shopping centres rather than the dreary chain-store ‘hellscapes’ of some intentionally created shopping centres. We do need to increase homes within shopping centres where practical, so that the residential population expands in an area with walkable facilities.
Walking to health and safety
It is clear throughout the report that attending to walkability is a key part of health promotion. This includes both physical and mental health. The creation of a degree of change within our pedestrianised spaces – markets, licensed stalls, music – matter in the making of unpredictability and surprise for visitors, both locals and tourists.
There is a serious safety issue in extending pedestrianisation. From 2004 to 2022, an average of eight pedestrians a week died on roads and 109 were seriously injured. In total, pedestrians were around 20% of road deaths in 2022. Whilst there are benefits from 20mph limits in urban settlements, the protection of the public would also be served by more pedestrianisation, and cycle tracks segregated from traffic.
However, wider pavements and improved cycle tracks attract pavement parking. A pavement parking ban in England – not just London – is overdue, with resources for enforcement. These issues dovetail with the successes of low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), which include reductions in car ownership, and vehicle journeys both within LTNs and on ‘boundary’ roads over time.
Much harder to measure in research is the value of a better overall active travel experience for community, interactions between people in the same neighbourhood, and meeting people you know whilst making use of public transport. Research summarised in The Pedestrian Pound does suggest pluses in all these areas. Less obvious is that perceptions of crime risk can be alleviated in areas with public realm improvements which bring more people on to pavements at various hours of the day. Research suggests lighting is a key issue as well.
That vital green space… if it’s still nearby
Where and how much people walk can be related to the proximity of their home to green spaces. Some councils, in my experience, are very willing to chip away at green spaces for development without considering public health, biodiversity, need for allotments, and play spaces for children. Neither Canterbury nor Oxford would stand up to historical scrutiny of such planning failures. Since research shows particular benefit to the elderly of green spaces in their locality, it follows preservation of them should be as much of an all-party priority as disappearing public toilets.
A recommendation
The Pedestrian Pound is one of the best guides for those concerned about communities, active travel, holistic planning, and justifiable planning decisions. I would make every local councillor read it if I could.
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