Whilst trying to find a diversion during a family shopping trip, an activity I'm not enthusiastic about, it struck me that the out of town "designer outlet" shopping location we'd decided to visit (itself a very unusual type of shopping location for us) provides a range of facilities and attractions that attempt to make life very easy for shoppers. For example, very plush toilet facilities, comfortable sheltered rest areas, numerous coffee and meal outlets, a children's play area, dog facilities/dog friendly shops and complimentary umbrella stations. For someone like me who has been involved with some town centre regeneration projects, it seemed that the traditional town centre might learn from out-of-town shopping locations like this one in terms of making them more attractive to people, and indeed better able to compete with out-of-town shopping locations. The elephant in the room is of course the large car park that caters for trips from a regional catchment area, which is not an environmentally sustainable approach to retail provision. It still surprises me that a family comprising a town planner and a transportation planner made this journey to this "designer outlet" location; we should know better and therefore avoid them! Perhaps we were fact-finding.
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