Rother District Wide Shopping Assessment June 2008 PREPARED BY GL Hearn Property Consultants 20 Soho Square London W1D 3QW Tel: +44 (0)20 7851 4900 Fax: +44 (0)20 7851 4910 Email:
[email protected] www.glhearn.com Date: June 2008 Ref: J: Planning/Job Files/J019130/Reports/Rother District Wide Shopping Assessment - Final Rother District Wide Shopping Assessment 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 GL Hearn was instructed by Rother District Council in October 2007 to undertake a District-wide Shopping Assessment. The purpose of this assessment is to inform and guide retail planning in the District and to form a robust evidential base for the preparation of the Council’s Local Development Framework Core Strategy. 1.2 The main objectives of the Assessment were set out in the Council’s Brief (Appendix 1) and these comprised: a) Current, and trends in (over the last 10 years), shopping rental levels in each town using published data; b) An assessment of the position of town shopping centres in Rother within the sub-regional retail hierarchy, drawing on comparative data on existing floorspace, catchments, accessibility, etc factors (to include Eastbourne, Hastings, Tunbridge Wells, Ashford and Folkestone); c) A residents survey for these catchment areas (a statistically representative 1% sample) on where they shop for convenience goods, comparison goods, and service trade services, on how often they shop in the various locations and their view of future provision for additional shopping in Rother District; d) The views of key stakeholders and the implications