Welsh Journals

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9. RETAIL DEVELOPMENT IN WALES: CURRENT TRENDS AND ISSUES Clifford M. Guy INTRODUCTION The past twenty years have seen some important changes in shopping provision in the UK (O'Brien and Harris, 1991; Bromley and Thomas, 1993a; Guy, 1994a). Large new purpose-built stores have emerged, many of them outside established shopping areas. Retail parks and regional shopping centres have provided formidable competition for town and suburban centres. These devel- opments have been accompanied by growing concern about their impacts (BDP Planning, 1992; House of Commons, 1994). Discussion of these issues by academics and practitioners has tended to take a 'national' (i.e., UK) viewpoint in which regional or local variations are largely ignored. And yet, retail development, while influenced by financial and strategic decisions made at national or international level, has a very strong local dimension. New stores and shopping centres, or perhaps the lack of them, have important effects upon everyday life as well as upon local land markets and urban economies. The scale, character and economic viability of new development are also strongly influenced by local circumstances. Even less well researched are the possible influences which act at sub- national or regional scale. While the 'economic region' is an accepted spatial unit in studies of industrial growth and change, the possibility that regional variations in economic or cultural factors could influence retail development is almost completely ignored in the literature. This article attempts to redress the balance by examining recent changes in retailing in Wales. The view is taken that the pattern of retail development in Wales has differed, to some extent, from that of the rest of the UK and western Europe. The key question is whether one can distinguish particularly 'Welsh' characteristics of retail development and shopping centres.