Planning for Retail Development: A Critical View of the British Experience

Planning for Retail Development: A Critical View of the British Experience, Clifford Guy, London and New York, Routledge, 2007, 304 pp., £79.00 (h/b) This is a brand new book - in one sense. There is no doubt that the structure is new and the material has not been seen before in book form. In another sense, though, this is, in effect, the third edition of a book on the subject that has occupied Cliff Guy throughout his professional life. Following on from his 1980 volume on Retail Location and Retail Planning in Britain and his 1994 follow-up entitled The Retail Development Process, this new volume brings the story of retail development and retail planning in Britain up to date. It is testimony to the massive change in the subject over the last 50 years or so that Cliff Guy has had in essence to start all over again each time. As with his previous books, Guy has done a great service to the subject and on behalf of those who study retail land-use planning in Britain and have often been perplexed by it. Cliff Guy is almost uniquely placed to comment on the subject and this book therefore does not disappoint. Essentially Guy has organised the material he covers into three sections, although these are not explicitly labelled as such. The first third of the book is taken up with a chronological review of the changing policies and details of British retail land-use planning. Beginning with the 'early days' of the 1960s, he moves through the initial central government policies, the 'free for all' of the 1980s and then the 'tightening up' and 'town centres first' policies of the 1990s and recent years. The second third of the book switches to an issue- or theme-based approach, with chapters covering demand, need and impact; innovation, productivity and competition; sustainability and shopping travel; social exclusion and access to shopping; and finally urban regeneration. All of these issues are investigated in turn for how they fit with or contradict retail planning and retail policy approaches. The single final chapter of the book is essentially a third section, containing an overall evaluation of retail planning policy. As ever Cliff Guy has provided an extensive bibliography and helpful index. The subtitle of the book is 'a critical view of the British experience' and some of Guy's criticisms are easy to identify and follow. Others can perhaps be extrapolated from the way the text progresses and the degree of detail that is developed. It would seem for example that the ever more detailed and nuanced policy statements in England and the seemingly constant need to pin down every detail and provide explanations which can then in turn be subject to challenge and query do not sit well with the author. Certainly the reader gets drawn into ever more narrow questions at certain points and cannot help feeling that they are part of some elaborate game by those supposedly in charge of retail and other policies. Guy poses the question of whether this complexity in England in particular has served much purpose, other than to expand the consultancy and legal possibilities. He is also strong on the ways in which terms have emerged and then been defined and redefined, but still seem to mean different things to different players. As he illustrates yet more contradictions one is drawn to the idea of simplification. However, this may also be a false goal, as shown by the hostile reactions to the Barker review of land-use planning (which was published after this book went to print). Barker's suggestion that retail planning should focus on market failure rather than 'need' and on increasing competition has not been well received (e.g. …