COMMENT Is the Stanford Marshmallow Test and improved emotional intelligence the cause of the decline in the high street?
Contrast the 10-year-old who wants to go to the high street and buy a pair of trainers with the 40-year-old who doesn’t want the hassle of having to use a parking app and go into a shop, and would rather have a wider selection that can be delivered the next day. Delayed gratification in action?
As part of working on the High Streets Task Force, I’ll be helping centres identify their “marshmallow”, and make it totally irresistible.
Driving footfall
These “marshmallows” are likely to be wide and varied. They could be civic, education or health-based “traditional” occupiers of the high street and should not be dismissed, especially where they are diversifying, but we need to start looking for other drivers of footfall.
Some centres have successfully used a public space as the main anchor. The significant advantage of this approach is that it can withstand many economic cycles and isn’t going to close. If the space is well designed, the potential uses are limitless, from a performance space or street food market to somewhere to hold outdoor exercise classes.
The introduction of Class E is certainly a welcome step in improving flexibility and reducing uncertainty, not least through enabling the candlestick-maker to return to the high street. The opportunity to include maker spaces is an exciting one, and enables centres to become places of work for a new sector.
In addition to the candlestick-maker, operations such as dance and yoga studios now have greater certainty in terms of occupying existing space. Once people have a reason to visit a centre, it becomes a lot easier to buy that book, jumper or birthday gift at the same time, rather than ordering online.
Footfall generation and the ability to attract people to a centre is key. There is clearly going to be a need for balance in all this. Bringing together more operators in addition to increasing the number of homes in centres will no doubt lead to conflicts which will need to be carefully managed.
Centres for all
There are centres up and down the country doing great things at the moment. For me, the best change happens when local residents are fully involved. The customer is king, after all. It is also important that we provide centres that are attractive to the whole range of society. The trainer-obsessed 10-year-old of today is the consumer of the future. It is important that teenagers and young adults are included in any discussions. They need to be part of the conversation about the future of centres.
We need to rethink our attitude to transport in and around centres too. While there are exceptions, town centres should, by their definition, be accessible to their residential hinterland. Safe routes into the centre and suitable storage will encourage more people to cycle into centres. In some centres vacant units have been repurposed to provide secure cycle parking.
In order to meet the instant gratification model, there then needs to be an efficient way for those who buy too much to have their purchases delivered (every year I am over-ambitious about the size of Christmas tree I can carry home).
The worst outcome of this exercise would be to produce a solution. There isn’t a solution. It needs to be an evolution, creating the buildings and spaces that have sufficient flexibility to be future-ready, and local change-makers need to be empowered through the provision of knowledge, advice, training and data to help local people transform their high streets.
It’s certainly going to be challenging, but I’m excited to be part of this marshmallow hunt.
Penny Moss is an associate at Planning Potential and a member of the High Streets Task Force
