To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what research his Department has evaluated on the social effects on local areas of prosperous town centres. (282637)

The main sources of research, which my Department has considered during the course of its work on town centres, include:

“Vital and Viable Town Centres: Meeting the Challenge”—URBED, 2004, HMSO;

“Smaller Towns Report: Delivering retail-led renaissance in towns and smaller cities”—UCL, 2004, BCSC;

“The Role and Vitality of Secondary Shopping”—CBRE, 2004, The National Retail Planning Forum (sponsored by BCSC Education Trust, Marks & Spencer and the ODPM);

“Policy Evaluation of the Effectiveness of PPG6”—CBRE, January 2004, ODPM;

“The Lyons Inquiry into Local Government, Place-shaping: a shared ambition for the future of local government, Final Report”—Sir Michael Lyons, March 2007;

“A Balance of Trade”, Report of the Commission on Retail Conservation to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, March 2007;

“Clone Town Britain, the loss of identity on the nation’s high streets”—New Economics Foundation, September 2004;

“Ghost Town Britain”—New Economics Foundation, 2005;

“High Street Britain 2015”—House of Commons All-Party Parliamentary Small Shops Group, 2006;

“Mixed Use Development: Practice and Potential”—DTLR, March 2002, HMSO;

“Managing Urban Spaces in Town Centres—Good Practice Guide”, Chesterton for the Association of Town Centre Management (sponsored by DOE, Scottish Enterprise, Boots the Chemists, Marks & Spencer).

We have also evaluated and taken account of similar work produced by stakeholders such as individual retailers, Friends of the Earth, Accessible Retail and the Association of Convenience Stores.