Understanding and Enhancing the Community Value of Traditional Retail Markets in UK cities

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Traditional retail markets (TRM) have played a significant role in UK's towns and cities for centuries more recently specially supporting deprived neighbourhoods providing affordable food and start-up business opportunities as well as fostering social inclusion in increasingly diverse cities. However they have been affected by radical changes in global retail trends and public sector cuts which are relegating them to a marginal space. At the same time, markets specialising in food, local produce, fashion and crafts, aimed at high income consumers and tourists are in resurgence with Borough in London and La Boqueria in Barcelona held as successful models. Research is urgent to understand the current situation of markets and their potential community value which may be at risk as evidenced by the rise of campaigns, particularly in London, denouncing the displacement of independent retailers and vulnerable users. To respond to this knowledge gap and need for policy advice, this research will provide a fresh, novel and holistic way to understand the community value, which so far has been evidenced in international academic and policy literature but remains disconnected. For our research we will define the community value of TRM as constituted of three interconnected dimensions: 1. Economic as places that provide affordable food, products and services as well as create opportunities for low cost business start-ups. 2. Social as platforms for social mobility and the development of community ties and trust leading to better social inclusion. 3. Cultural as spaces for experiencing a diversity of cultures and ethnicities and provide a sense of place for migrants, ethnic minorities and generally vulnerable citizens. The project will be organised around four tasks. First we will critically analyse how the current public discourse around TRM is being framed nationally and internationally through an analysis of industry, academic, community, media and policy publications. Second, in collaboration with stakeholders through interviews and workshops, we will tease out the various ways in which key TRM stakeholders understand their community value. A third task will gain an in depth and rigorous understanding of markets users' experiences via interviews, focus groups and a large market user survey in three markets which we have selected as Sheffield Moor, Stockport and Queens Market in London. These represent the profound transformations that TRM are going through in different ways: the three are based in dense urban areas with significant deprived pockets within their catchments, they are all owned and managed by local authorities with severe funding pressures but are at various stages of redevelopment. With the data from the large scale survey we will perform a geospatial analysis identifying the socio-demographic groups that market users come from at the different case studies and relating this to their various experiences. The fourth task will concentrate in the development of usable outputs and tools for key TRM stakeholders such as market trader organisation, local authorities, national level policy makers, third sector organisations and local community groups all engaged in the future of TRM. To extend our potential to have a real societal impact we will co-produce our research with non-academic partners from the TRM sector (National Market Traders Federation) and experts in community economics (New Economics Foundation) and we will be supported through a Steering Group with other organisations at various stages of the research (See letters). The project will result in five academic articles in international journals. We will produce reports aimed at policy makers within the TRM sector and accessible short reports and non-academic articles all disseminated through our communication strategy. We will also hold practical workshops with traders, market managers and community groups to test and feedback on our findings.