About the Project
Commercial real estate markets are increasingly prone to disruption due to technological, social, environmental and economic changes. Office, retail and industrial markets were already in a dynamic state of flux before Covid-19, but institutional, commercial and personal responses to the global pandemic have exposed profound weaknesses in commercial property markets across the world. Consumer, business and employee behaviours have changed, perhaps irreversibly, as we demand safer, healthier, more innovative and agile built environments within which to work and spend our time and money; for example: growth in online shopping and ecommerce; more people working remotely away from the office; increasing reliance on next-day doorstep delivery and fulfilment. This research proposal seeks to record, map and analyse how these changes are impacting on commercial property markets in terms of the stock of premises, rental and capital values, levels of vacancy and changes of use.
The increasing quality and availability of data at a variety of spatial and temporal scales pertaining to the built environment in general, and commercial property markets in particular, creates new opportunities to quantify, analyse, illustrate and map changes that are occurring over time. This project seeks to exploit commercial property market spatio-temporal data and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to analyse and reveal how the supply of, and demand for, business premises in England and Wales has changed over the last decade. The project will primarily make use of National Non-Domestic (Business) Rates data available under licence from the Valuation Office for England and Wales, Ordnance Survey Address Data, and commercial property vacancy data via the Consumer Data Research Centre (CRDC), the latter of which is available open source, on a quarterly basis, going back to 2010, covering the following property criteria:
1. Unique reference number
2. Address and postcode
3. Special (use) Category code
4. Floorspace area
5. Rental value and rates payable
6. Vacancy status
7. Name of rate payer
A key challenge is to cleanse, categorise and integrate data in GIS and develop innovative ways of analysing and presenting how dynamic spatio-temporal changes are impacting on local commercial property markets. Data analysis and visualisation using GIS seeks to reveal how disruptive trends are affecting commercial property markets in England and Wales, by mapping changes in the distribution, quantum, value and vacancy of retail, office and industrial premises in over the last decade. Potential also exists to synthesise the aforementioned data with other open source spatial datasets measuring connectivity/integration, proximity to transport and infrastructure, socio-economic status and other locational and environmental characteristics.
The resulting data model and GIS and the findings and maps generated from them, will be of interest to central and local government policy makers, economic development agencies, commercial property occupiers, real estate investors and landlords, urban economists, commercial property surveyors, town planners, urban geographers, big data analysts, computer scientists and other people who are interested in how disruptive socio-economic changes are impacting on commercial property markets.
The principal supervisor for this project is Professor Paul Greenhalgh.
Eligibility and How to Apply:
Please note eligibility requirement:
• Academic excellence of the proposed student i.e. 2:1 (or equivalent GPA from non-UK universities [preference for 1st class honours]); or a Masters (preference for Merit or above); or APEL evidence of substantial practitioner achievement.
• Appropriate IELTS score, if required.
• Applicants cannot apply for this funding if currently engaged in Doctoral study at Northumbria or elsewhere.
For further details of how to apply, entry requirements and the application form, see
https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/research/postgraduate-research-degrees/how-to-apply/
Please note: Applications that do not include a research proposal of approximately 1,000 words (not a copy of the advert), or that do not include the advert reference (e.g. RDF21/EE/ABE/GREENHALGHPaul) will not be considered.
Deadline for applications: 29 January 2021
Start Date: 1 October 2021
Northumbria University takes pride in, and values, the quality and diversity of our staff. We welcome applications from all members of the community.
Funding Notes
The studentship is available to Home and International (including EU) students, and includes a full stipend, paid for three years at RCUK rates (for 2020/21, this is £15,285 pa) and full tuition fees.
References
Greenhalgh, P., King, H., Adebayo, A. and Ellis, J. (2020) Using GIS to Explore the Potential of Business Rating Data to Analyse Stock and Value Change for Land Administration: A Case Study of York. International Journal of Geo-Information Vol 9(5):321
Adebayo, A., Greenhalgh, P. and Muldoon-Smith K. (2019) Investigating retail space performance through configuration of consumer movement: a comparison of York and Leeds. Proceedings of the 12th Space Syntax Symposium. Beijing, China , July 2019
Muldoon-Smith and Greenhalgh, P (2019) Suspect foundations: developing an understanding of climate-related stranded assets in the global real estate sector. Energy Research & Social Science Vol 54 pp60-67
Thompson, E, Greenhalgh, P, Muldoon-Smith, K and Charlton, J. (2016) Planners in the future city: using city information modelling to support planners as market actors, Urban Planning, Vol 1(1), 79-94 (Inaugural Edition).
Muldoon-Smith K, Greenhalgh, P., Conroy-Dalton, R. & Alvanides, S. (2015) Urban Transactions: Investigating the Relationship between Spatial Preference and Spatial Configuration in the City of Leeds. Proceedings of the 10thSpace Syntax Symposium, University of Central London, London, July
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