CLIENT: London borough of bexley
PROJECT: Town Centre Regeneration and Night Time Masterplan
What were MAKE asked to do?
The London Borough of Bexley is not at the heart of the capital’s night-time economy! Nor would it want to be a Westminster, Camden or Islington. However, the council realised that having built perhaps the UK’s best licensing and planning enforcement team, that this was not enough. If the borough wanted to affect a safer, more diverse and sustainable change in its evening and night-time economy, it would need a masterplan for the town at night.
MAKE were asked to profile the town and identify the gaps in its evening and night-time offer to fit with this masterplan.
How did MAKE do it?
First we mapped the existing town centre after dark ‘offer’. There were some good independent pubs and bars, but very few quality restaurants or entertainment such as live music, comedy or theatre.
We then examined the geo-demographic data available for the area (CACI Acorn profiling). This suggested that although not chock full of high wealth individuals with large disposable incomes, the catchment was, by most standards, well above average in its income.
However, when examining Bexleyheath’s ‘travel-to-leisure’ catchment (a term created by MAKE), it was clear that people were just not coming into the town, indeed they were leaving, but for where?
A competitor analysis, linked with consumer surveying, showed that the town had some serious competitors for its different user ‘segments’, e.g. Bluewater and Bromley for the ‘family’ segment and Dartford or Maidstone for the ‘weekenders’ segment (i.e. 18-30 year olds).
We interviewed a target list of potential brands and independent venue operators to find out whether they had even considered Bexleyheath as a potential investment location in their roll out plans and if not what would tempt them.
Our work complemented other team members on consumer research and urban design.
What happened next?
By producing evidence of the innate wealth and potential spend ‘leakage’ in the area, we were able to refer potential after dark investors to the council’s planning and regeneration team. This has meant that as the town’s night-time strategy was delivered, and in particular key development briefs were written for the main sites, the borough are able to go straight to these investors and appraise them of the new opportunities available in the town centre. The council has also won a £3m grant to fund many of the environmental improvement that potential investors want to see in the town, on the back of the study.
What unique value did MAKE bring to this project?
Because of our knowledge of the UK retail–leisure industry, this work became the first of its kind in the UK to identify what was missing from a town after dark, and to create a proactive ‘attraction strategy’ to bring in new brands and concepts to address these gaps.