DIY outlets: in or out of town?

Do out of town superstores adversely affect traditional shopping centres by siphoning off the higher purchasing power of car‐owning households? The arguments for and against persist, but it appears that retail warehouses, selling bulky, durable goods in out of town locations are generally looked on favourably by planning authorities. As the trend to larger stores seems to have developed an unstoppable momentum, a recent project was set up to find out how accessible edge, or out of town, warehouses are, who uses them, and how they affect conventional shopping centres, particularly those with shops selling comparable merchandise. The following paper presents part of this research. It was carried out by Transport and Environment Studies (TEST), for London Transport in their dual role as public transport operators and as land owners with sites of interest to DIY superstore developers. The paper was presented at PTRC's 12th annual summer meeting in July this year, at the University of Sussex.