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The retail property market is constantly adopting to the continuous demand of retailers and their consumers. This paper aims to investigate retail property market dynamics through spatial accessibility measures of the City of York street network. It explores how spatial accessibility metrics (SAM) explain retail market dynamics (RMD) through changes in the city’s retail rental values and stock.

Valuation office agency (VOA) data sets (aspatial) and ordnance survey map (spatial) data form the empirical foundation for this investigation. Changes in rental value and retail stock between 2010 and 2017 VOA data sets represent the RMD variables. While, the configured street network measures of Space Syntax, namely, global integration, local integration, global choice and normalised angular choice form the SAM variables. The relationship between these variables is analysed through geo-visualisation and statistical testing using GIS and SPSS tools.

The study reveals that there has been an overall negative changes of 15 and 22% in rental value and retail stock, respectively, even though some locations within the sampled city (York, North Yorkshire, England) indicated positive changes. The study further indicated that changes in retail rental value and stock have occurred within locations with good accessibility index. It also verifies that there are spatial and statistical relationship between variables and 22% of RMD variability was jointly accounted for by SAM.

This research is first to investigates changes in retail property market variables through spatial accessibility measures of space syntax. It contributes to the burgeoning research field of real estate and Space Syntax.

Many national retailers have complained about increases in business rates tax bills since the 2017 revaluation. What impact has the 2017 business rates revaluation had on independent high street retailers in market towns in the north of England? The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The study uses Valuation Office Agency rating list data to determine rateable value and business rates payable for independent high street retailers in eight northern market towns either side of the 2017 rating revaluation. The data were analysed using business rates matrices to reveal the impact of the new rating list on independent retailers in the eight locations.

Analysis reveals that the majority of independent retailers in the northern market towns sampled have experienced reductions in both the rateable value of their premises and business rates payable. Increase in the rates relief threshold has extended relief to almost half of the independent retailers in the study, most of whom receive 100 per cent relief.

Charity shops receive at least 80 per cent rates relief which means they are able to afford to pay higher rents. This “sets the tone” for landlords setting market rents in that location which are then used as comparable evidence by the VOA when determining rateable values at revaluation further polarising the gap between rate payers and those to are exempt.

Focussing on independent retailers on high streets in markets towns in north of England, this study provides an alternative perspective to the orthodox view of business rates revaluations having a negative impact on retailers.

Commercial property development builds floor space in anticipation of potential, but unknown, future demand, making it particularly prone to risk and uncertainty. The research explores the degree to which property developer decision-making is objective and rational and the degree to which it relies on behavioural instincts and intuition. Decision-making theory, including heuristics, is considered and its prevalence in the field of commercial property development is examined.

A “dual-processing” decision-making model, comprising intuitive System 1 and objective System 2 processing, is proposed and tested. Inductive research using template analysis of interviews, with “high status” commercial property developers, explored whether the model offers an accurate representation of developers' behaviour and effective lens through which to examine decisions made under conditions of risk and uncertainty.

Participants believed they adopted objective and rational approaches to complex commercial property development decisions. Analysis of interviews reveals that System 1 heuristics and intuition play significant roles in decision-making behaviour, leading to potential bias and systematic error. The research concludes that the dual-processing model provides a useful lens through which to better understand the decision-making approach adopted by commercial property developers.

The research represents the rare application of behavioural theory to the realm of commercial property development and provides new and original insight as to how important investment decisions are made under conditions of risk and uncertainty, with implications for professional practice.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of the introduction of the business rates retention scheme (BRRS) in England which transferred financial liability for backdated appeals to LAs. Under the original scheme, business rates revenue, mandatory relief and liability for successful appeals is spilt 50/50 between central government and local government which both share the rewards of growth and bear the risk of losses.

The research adopts a microanalysis approach into researching local government finance, conducting a case study of Leeds, to investigate the impact of appeals liability and reveal disparities in impact, through detailed examination of multiple perspectives in one of the largest cities in the UK.

The case study reveals that Leeds, despite having a buoyant commercial economy driven by retail and service sector growth, has been detrimentally impacted by BRRS as backdated appeals have outweighed uplift in business rates income. Fundamentally BRRS is not a “one size fits all” model – it results in winners and losers – which will be exacerbated if local authorities get to keep 100 per cent of their business rates from 2020.

LAs’ income is more volatile as a consequence of both the rates retention and appeals liability aspects of BRRS and will become more so with the move to 100 per cent retention and liability.

Such volatility impairs the ability of local authorities to invest in growth at the same time as providing front line services over the medium term – precisely the opposite of what BRRS was intended to do. It also incentivises the construction of new floorspace, which generates risks overbuilding and exacerbating over-supply.

The research reveals the significant impact of appeals liability on LAs’ business rates revenues which will be compounded with the move to a fiscally neutral business rates system and 100 per cent business rates retention by 2020.

Explains that the 1993 Department of Environment Survey of Derelict Land in England found that the area of derelict land in England between 1988 and 1993 remained relatively static, despite the considerable sums of public money spent on derelict land reclamation during this period. With the launch of English Partnerships in 1993, and its subsuming of Derelict Land Grant the following year, evaluates the changes in the funding of derelict land reclamation in England and attempts to identify the likely outcomes of such changes. Describes a study in which key players within English Partnerships and Government Offices for the regions were interviewed, as well as local government officers with the responsibility for implementing land reclamation programmes. Concludes that there will be a reduction in the priority and funding of derelict land reclamation and that as a consequence, the area of derelict land in England may increase for the first time in over a decade.

This article explores the little understood practice of school interior design and the manner in which school interiors give form to ideas about what the work of children and teachers could and should look like. Its focus is a perceived link between the concepts of school work made material in the design of new twenty‐first century learning environments and those expressed in the design of Modernist progressive schools such as Richard Neutra’s Corona Ave, Elementary School, California. The article’s impetus comes from current interest in the inter‐relationship between the design of physical learning environments and pedagogy reform as governments in Australia and internationally, work to transform teaching and learning practices through innovative school building and refurbishment projects. Government campaigns, for example the UK’s Schools for the Future Program and Australia’s Victorian Schools Plan, use a promotional rhetoric that calls for the final dismantling of the cellular classroom with its industrial model of work so that ‘different pedagogical approaches and the different ways that children learn [can] be represented in the design of new learning environments’, in buildings and interiors designed to support contemporary constructivist‐inspired pedagogies.

Whilst the real estate development appraisal practices of large national and international real estate companies are well understood, relatively little is known about how development appraisals are conducted by indigenous appraisers and valuers in developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how development appraisal is conducted in Brazil, compared to the UK, focusing primarily on the methods employed by small- and medium-sized real estate practices and their appraisers to appraise the viability of commercial real estate developments in the State of Sao Paulo.

The study employs a two phase Delphi Method to capture and analyse empirical data from small- and medium-sized real estate appraisers in Brazil. Using the long established and relatively transparent UK Residual Method of development appraisal as a template against which to compare Brazilian appraisal methods, guidance and practice. To understand how indigenous development appraisers operate the Brazilian development appraisal methods, the research was conducted in Portuguese by a bi-lingual real estate expert who was familiar with both UK and Brazilian practice.

The research establishes that appraisers working for small- and medium -sized real estate practices in Brazil rarely use the Residual Method. Instead, they employ a range of methods, the choice of which is heavily influenced by the availability of comparable market data, with Direct Comparison of market data and the Capitalisation of Income being the methods of choice. Appraisers rarely employ the Residual Method as the principal development appraisal technique, using instead the Comparative Method and Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) analysis. Land prices are usually agreed or already known and developer’s profit is usually determined using DCF analysis and is highly sensitive to fluctuations in construction costs.

The research engaged with a small number of appraisers and valuers in small- and medium-sized practices in the State of Sao Paulo using a two-phase Delphi Method. The long established UK Residual Method of development appraisal was used as a template against which to compare practice in Sao Paulo State. There is potential therefore to replicate the research in other Brazilian States and transfer the methodology to other developing countries.

In Brazil, when development land in urban areas is acquired on the basis of plot exchange, land is often sold at less than market value and the original landowner retains an equity stake in the development and shares in the development overage. The practice of “permuta física”, giving landowners the freehold of part of the development, or “permuta financeira”, whereby the landowner receives an enhanced land price, indexed against development value, is of potential relevance to the UK and other developed countries that need help in urban unlocking land markets.

The research is a unique comparative study of development appraisal methods employed by small- and medium-sized practices in Brazil. It contributes to the limited literature that has so far been published in English on Brazilian development appraisal methods and reveals the similarities and differences with the Residual Method of development appraisal that is widely used in the UK and other developed countries.

The paper investigates the scale of relocations generated by property‐led regeneration schemes and identifies the perceived benefits accruing to occupiers of relocating to such developments. In so doing the implications for the local property market of such moves, in respect of the performance of new and existing developments, are revealed.