GLA Economics
1970s retail data brought into the 21st century
The ODPM’s town centres statistics provide the first detailed data on retailing since 1971, when the last national Census of Distribution was published.
Geofutures, along with UCL’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, assisted Greater London Authority (GLA) Economics in comparing the 1971 data for Greater London with equivalent ODPM stats collected 30 years later.
The 1971 data is held only in hard copy, which had to be digitised and saved to a database to allow a comparison – which in turn could only take place once a systematic process of name-matching had been undertaken to allow for changing boundaries and retail classifications. Floorspace data differences and avoidance of data disclosure had also to be managed.
Geographic analysis of the results allowed proper measurement of the fundamental structural changes in London’s retailing economy, from major consolidation of convenience retailing to the development of out-of-town comparison shopping malls, as well as notable changes in the relative fortunes of key boroughs.
