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The purpose of the paper is to present and critically discuss the findings of the ESRC-funded HS2020 project. The aim is to discuss the retail-led change that has happened to the High Streets that participated to the project that, in some cases, is revolutionary and is leading to the reinvention of the place. To do so reference is made to various retail change theories discussing both institutional and consumer-led change.

This is a discussion paper on the findings of the HS2020 project.

The major finding reported in this paper is that the reinvention is a natural learning process that involves the comprehension of change and the development of knowledge that will lead to the reinvention of the High Street.

The findings of the research are based on data that were collected from a total of ten towns across the UK.

The paper suggests that to reinvent the High Street the stakeholders that are involved in the place decision-making processes they should embrace the change as a natural development and try to understand and learn from it rather than resisting to it. The HS2020 project provides a comprehensive guide of the areas that change can be managed and if it happens it can facilitate the reinvention.

The paper is relevant to the academic community, as it offers insight to the theories of retail change, and to the practitioners, as it provides evidence as to how to deal with the change that happens to the High Streets.

Reviews the academic and practitioner literature on retail operations and identifies five core elements of retail operations. Proposes a method by which managers can examine ways of improving their operations by the use of a modified cause‐effect technique. Provides worked examples of the technique.

Attempts to draw out the salient factors at work during the late 1970s and 1980s that led to success, initially, in the retail sector, but ultimately to the failure of the company in 1990. Charts the successes: the first retailer in Europe to introduce a comprehensive EPoS system; the company′s expansion; one of the first retailers to embrace the concept of lifestyle retailing; the introduction of its own stylecard for customer credit; and product and market development, including own‐labels. Bad management decisions produced internal conflicts in stores (especially where three trading formats operated in one store); increased use of concessions within other stores; acquisition bids by other companies. Profits fell, stores were closed and staff redundancies occurred; finally resulting in the company going into receivership.

Reviews a 1938 issue of Chain and Multiple Store, detailing the then current focus of conglomerate retailing, innovations, benefits to the customer, etc. Explores the issues of expansion and concentration, store and merchandise marketing, customer service, working conditions, environmental issues. Concludes that the basic retailing issues of 50 years ago differ very little from those of today, emphasizing, as they did, customer service, a formally undefined marketing mix, the fears of small shopkeepers, gender confrontation in the workforce and head/branch office antagonisms.

Identifies some of the industry‐wide changes such as the decentralization of retailing and the impact and implications for town centres of retailing and its wider function. Examines the recent upsurge of interest in town centre management in the context of current government planning policy guidelines and ministerial statements. Identifies the key components of successful town centres including private/public sector partnerships and funding. Demonstrates, through an examination of initiatives taken by two particular authorities, the need for a flexible interpretation of the concepts of town centre management.

Town centre management as an activity has been in operation for over five years in the UK. A postal survey of town centre managers and local planning officers in northwest England and North Wales showed that few had any means of assessing the effectiveness of their schemes. Identifies reasons for failure to provide clear measurement criteria and outlines a three by three matrix to remedy this shortfall.

Within the UK, the continuing development of out of town retail outlets is well documented in the literature. The process is usually depicted as a set of four waves. However, all four waves focus on the retailing of goods rather than of services. Asserts that there are growing indications that retail services complexes are playing an increasingly leading role in the process of retail decentralisation. Describes some of the contributions to the growth of out of town services retailing and outlines a number of planning issues associated with them. Focuses on multiplex cinemas, leisure complexes and hyperpubs.

The purpose of this paper is to document the results and the impact of the ESRC-funded High Street UK 2020 (HSUK2020), a project designed to take the existing academic knowledge relating to retail and high street change directly to UK High Streets, to improve local decision-making and, ultimately, their vitality and viability.

Through a systematic literature review, and by following the tenets of engaged scholarship, the authors identified 201 factors that influence the vitality and viability of town centres. Through the consensus-building Delphi technique, a panel of 20 retail experts identified the top 25 priorities for action.

Taking a place management approach led to the development of a more strategic framework for regeneration, which consisted of repositioning, reinventing, rebranding and restructuring strategies (4R’s of regeneration). Collaboration with the project towns resulted in identification of the strategy area that would add the most value, and the impact of the 4R’s and the top 25 priorities is demonstrated via numerous town examples.

Knowledge exchange projects, such as High Street UK2020, have an important contribution to make, not by developing even more theory that is unlikely to get utilised, instead their contribution is to bring existing theory into practical use.