Thank you so much to all those who joined Nicki Butler, Beauclair Sales & Marketing and Adam Rabinowitz, Beauclair Chief Data Officer for our workshop Measuring The Success of 15-Minute Cities during ATCM Summer School 2024: Innovation in Town and City Climate Action, 19th & 20th June 2024 in Glasgow.
Whilst 15-minute cities are in many UK strategies and plans, in various guises such as 20-minute Neighbourhoods in Scotland, Liveable Neighbourhoods in Birmingham or the Connected Town in Ipswich. However, there are very few who would say they have completed this journey, making it hard to empirically evaluate their impact.
Currently, much of the MEASUREMENT of 15-minute cities is about INPUTS e.g. do residents have walkable access to each of the pillars of services within the 15-minute boundary. But the success and therefore longevity of 15-minute cities ultimately is contingent on the benefits they deliver for visitors and consumers as a result of these changes. For example:
- Do people living within 15 minute regions spend more within it over time?
- Are the benefits of 15 minute cities evenly spread to all demographic groups within the city? Is it improving diversity or encouraging gentrification?
Beauclair Data can define the 15-minute city area and measure the RETAIL SPEND within it, and also surrounding areas such as the wider town or city, or the city centre. This information allows us to actually measure the impact in sales PRE & POST the 15-minute city implementation. Allowing us to calculate
- Whether Sales, Customers Numbers or the Amount each customer spends overall in our 15 minute city area improves post the 15-minute city implementation? Which sectors benefit e.g. Food & Drink vs Grocery?
- If a 15-minute city is a success, does it come at the expense of sales in neighbouring areas e.g. City Centre?
To illustrate how this works in practice, we shared a real client case study about PEDESTRIANISATION IN SHREWSBURY, shared with kind permission from Sebastian Slater, Executive Director Shrewsbury BID.
By analysing sales in the PEDESTRIANISED AREAS vs NON-PEDESTRIANISED AREAS, before and after their implementation, we were able to gain huge insights for our client about the effectiveness of the programme:
- Sales in the PEDESTRIANISED ZONE grew 37% vs 12% growth in the NON-PEDESTRIANISED area ie 25% more.
- Sunday saw the highest incremental growth; with Sunday sales in the PEDESTRIANISED ZONE 54% higher than Sunday sales in the NON-PEDESTRIANISED.
- Incremental sales growth differs dramatically by sector, with Food & Drink, General Retail & Grocery being the big winners.
- In terms of where customers came from, all areas benefited but the highest incremental sales came from those living further away from town
Whatever metric you choose to measure, when putting in place major place based interventions such as a 15-minute city or Pedestrianisation programme, it is critical to have ONGOING MONITORING, so that changes and adaptations can be implemented in an agile fashion, rather than as one attendee worried “waking up in ten years time and realising this was a mistake”.
Full deck below for download. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to get in touch Nicki@beauclairdata.co.uk
Our data is based on retail spend data from the average performance of a 62 towns and city centres.