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Consultants
Michael Bach and
Mark Thurstain-Goodwin of GeofuturesThe team – Michael Bach and Mark Thurstain-Goodwin of Geofutures – provide you with a unique combination: a deep understanding of the Government’s planning policy and its application and of the data sources needed to track retail development and changes in the retail economy.
The team has worked together closely since 1996 on the DETR/ODPM’s Town Centres Project, which was designed to define concentrations of town centre activity so as to enable national data sources for floorspace, employment and, in due course, turnover, to be downloaded for these areas. Having defined these areas, the “town centres” were also used to download any information with a geographical reference (eg a postcode), such as shopping centres, pharmacies or supermarkets.
Michael Bach has a unique insight to the development, implementation and enforcement of national policy in England. Until April 2005 he was Principal Planner, ODPM – responsible since 1993 for developing national planning policy for town centres, retail, leisure, economic development and housing. He developed the Government’s policy for town centres and retail development - PPG6 (1996) and PPS6 (2005) - and has been at the leading edge in promoting a change in the culture of planning, moving it towards a genuinely plan-led approach. Despite having been an advocate of Government policy he has a realistic view of the capacity for change both in planning and in the retail industry, and maintains regular contact with key players in the industry.
Mark Thurstain-Goodwin runs Geofutures, a geographic information practice based in Bath which builds fine-scale computer models based on mapping technology and advanced statistical techniques. The information and analysis Geofutures provides allows people, organisations and government to both understand the past and to develop strategies for the future. Geofutures is currently implementing a national model to track the performance of town centres and the wider retail economy for ODPM, which will inform the quantitative aspect of this work.
