Retail parks

A retail park is an unenclosed shopping centre with a typical range of 250,000 square feet to 600,000 square feet, of gross leasable area. It is likely to have more money spent on these features and architecture than the traditional shopping center.

They are found on the fringes of most large towns and cities in highly accessible locations and are aimed at households owning the car. They offer an alternative to the busy city centres. Such developments have been encouraged by the cheaper and more affordable land on the outskirts of the towns and cities, and with loose planning controls in relation to the Enterprise Zones, making planning and development more easy. In recent years, in many areas in the UK, planning controls have been tightened to preserve the countryside. This has made it more difficult for the developments to proceed, resulting some of the retail parks being built at the former brownfield sites. There are also environmental disadvantages to large retail parks on the rural fringe, including the increased traffic and pollution that occurs during access.

Typically, retail parks host a range of chain stores, including furniture, clothes or footwear superstores, electrical stores and the anchor tenant is usually a supermarket. Owing to their out-of-town sites, abundance of free parking and proximity to major roads, retail parks are often easier to reach than central shopping areas, and as a result town centres are less attractive to retailers.