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Looks at the effect of the recession on speculative office development and states that although London may be suffering more than the cities further north, steps should be taken to ensure that any property developments are built with future changes in mind. Discusses the valuable assets of property and includes a table of rental prices across the country to strengthen this point. Sums up by suggesting that, in an occupier′s market, facilities managers can help to influence the design of buildings with specification and detailing.

The previous article in this series (RDM November/December) examined techniques designed to search out areas of the country that might have potential for new stores. This article looks more closely at finding the best site available within a chosen area. It discusses store turnover forecasting techniques, and also considers the question of assessing viability in product‐dominated markets.

Many retailers, conscious of the increasing difficulty of finding good, viable sites for stores, have recently been considering the large array of store location techniques now available to them. The success of the two seminars on store location organised by RMDP in February 1983 and June 1984, bear witness to this concern. However, these retailers are likely to find it difficult to assess the efficacy and suitability of the bewildering range of techniques offered. This article, and three to follow, attempt briefly to guide the interested but wary retailer through the technical maze.

The last article in this series discussed ways of assessing the viability of a store on a specific site. The techniques discussed in that article are used to determine how the general locational characteristics of the potential trade areas of the site will affect sales at a new outlet. However, a store's performance can be strongly influenced not only by such general trade‐area characteristics but also by micro‐level features of the site. For example, whatever the number of potential customers in the locality, if an outlet has unattractive and dingy surroundings, lacks viability, or has poor local access, it will probably attract little business. In the first section of this article, therefore, the authors examine ways of estimating the nature and significance of such micro‐level site features. This takes us down to the third level in the “search‐viability‐micro” strategy suggested in article 2 (RDM, Nov/Dec 1984, p. 41). In the second section the authors turn to the evaluation, not of potential new outlets, but of existing outlets. Given the massive investment that major retailers have tied up in existing stores, as compared to that put into each additional store, it is remarkable that so little work has done on methods of evaluating existing stores. In the authors' view, both the estimation of the effects of micro‐level factors and the evaluation of existing outlets are grossly under‐researched areas.

The first article in this series explained why store location decisions are becoming more difficult. This article, and the next two, look at the pros and cons of various techniques that are now available to help retailers make such decisions. The three articles are presented in the sequence a retailer might follow as part of an ‘ideal’ store location strategy. This article looks at techniques aimed at searching out areas of the country that might have potential for new stores; these are referred to as search techniques. The next article discusses techniques that will forecast the likely turnover of a store on a particular site selected within the area of identified potential; these are referred to as viability techniques. The fourth and final article in the series will, as part of a consideration of evaluation of existing stores, look at techniques concerned with the effect of localised design, siting and perception issues on store performance; we can call these micro assessment techniques. The first part of this article will act as useful background for discussion of all three levels of technique application.

Cochlear's first product, the 22-channel Nucleus implant, was the result of a research programme that has been dated back to 1967, when Graeme Clark, an ear, nose and throat (ENT) surgeon, commenced doctoral work on the electrical stimulation of the hearing nerve. Following the completion of his PhD in 1969, Clark was appointed the inaugural Chair in Otolaryngology at the University of Melbourne. When he joined the university in 1970, his primary objective was the practical application of his PhD research: namely, the development of a ‘bionic ear’, an electronic device that would stimulate the hearing nerve in the profoundly deaf. He realised early on that lack of resources would be one of his major impediments:across the road [from my office] the experimental research laboratory was in a disused hospital mortuary. When I looked at the mortuary my heart sank. It was dilapidated and bare. There was a stone table in the centre, but little else. The walls needed painting, and the light diffused poorly through the high windows. Anyway, I had no money to buy equipment even if the laboratory itself were satisfactory. (Clark, 2000, p. 54)

Jane Barrow, CEO of Caprica Energy, must recommend to the board which of three potential “unconventional ” natural-gas development sites in different parts of the United States the company should pursue. The case takes place in January 2011, when the “low-hanging fruit ” of natural-gas production in the United States had essentially been picked. All three of the potential sites (shale, coalbed methane, and tight sands) would require hydraulic fracturing, a process of removing gas that was formerly considered inaccessible by injecting water and chemicals into the ground. Because of emerging concerns about the potential harm “fracking ” can do to drinking water, Barrow must not only analyze which site might be most profitable but also what the potential risks to the environment and area residents might be.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

THAT the intransigence of a minority, maybe, but a very forceful minority of workers in Britain is slowly but surely strangling the economy and with it, their own future may be hard to believe; but incontrovertible evidence is there for all to see.