Consumer and Demographic Data Archives

How grey belt sites will help tackle the UK housing crisis

Posted on: 30 September 2024

The UK has not been meeting its house building targets for some time. This is not new news, but it is worth reiterating the scale of shortfall. Over the past five years, we have consistently delivered 20% fewer homes than were targeted: a total miss of nearly 300,000 homes (or put another way, an entire year’s target).

Couple this with projected population growth and we can see why house building has made its way up the political agenda. The population is expected to swell by 3.8 million people over the coming 10 years, and naturally, these people will need somewhere to live.

In this blog series, CACI and Virgin Land will uncover key questions around the future of house building targets and how they can be addressed via grey belt sites, including their locations and desirability, whether they create suitable opportunities for inhabitants and how they vary by region.

Where should new house building targets be focused?

Population growth will concentrate around major towns and cities, especially given that 14 of the largest 15 towns and cities have projected growth rates that outstrip the UK average. However, cities are not always where the market has delivered new homes. In fact, eight of those top 15 towns and cities have housing delivery rates that lag behind the national average. Therefore, new housing targets should be geographically directed to the places that people want to live.

Who should be the focus of house building targets?

Housing growth should be targeted at the people that need it most. Left to its own devices, the market has delivered new housing that concentrates around a few demographic groups. Using CACI’s Acorn segmentation to profile new homes delivered in the last five years, we can see clear trends in the data; Tenant Living (young, urban renters) comprise 18% of new homes but just 12% of the population, Semi-Rural Maturity and Mature Success (two affluent, older groups who are likely to be downsizing) collectively account for 20% of new homes but just 13% of the population. Lower affluent, urban families such as Limited Budgets, Hard-Up Households and Cash Strapped Families, however, have received disproportionately little housing development.

This is not to lay blame on housebuilders; the commercial challenges of development in urban environments are clearly contributing factors, however, the impact is one of acute supply challenges in specific demographic groups who are coincidentally the groups most likely to be living in over-occupied housing. To maximise the impact of housebuilding initiatives, the route forward requires a more collaborative approach, which the newly formed MADE Partnership may well deliver.

How will the grey belt make a difference for house building targets?

Central to the Labour government’s housing policy is the rezoning of poor-quality green belt sites into the “grey belt”, effectively opening swathes of previously unavailable land for development. But how influential could this policy change be? CACI and Virgin Land have partnered to uncover the potential impact that opening up the grey belt can have on housing market dynamics.

How CACI can help?

Stay tuned for the next blog in this series, where we’ll dive deeper into grey belts, their locations and their impact on housing. In the meantime, contact CACI to learn more about how you can ensure that your developments are meeting the demands of local movers.

Why retail destinations should invest in consumer experiences & perceptions

Posted on: 9 July 2024

Want to increase your visitors’ spend by 25%? Invest in your amenities.

Facilities are a vital part of retail and leisure destinations. Despite not directly producing turnover, they play an essential part in driving performance. Through research from our Shoppers Dimensions dataset– our database of over 1 million respondents across 270 UK-wide destinations which enables key performance indicator (KPI) benchmarking of assets against similar locations across the UK to contextualise performance and enhance decision-making– we analysed how various KPIs are impacted by consumers’ experiences and perceptions.

So, how exactly are services and amenities within retail destinations affecting consumers’ behaviours? How can retail destinations leverage these insights to bolster experiences and perceptions?

How do consumers’ overall shopping experiences influence their spending behaviours?

According to our research, retail destinations capable of improving their rating of a person’s overall shopping experience may recognise an increase in their average retail spend by £21. There is an uplift across the board when overall shopping experience is rated 5 out of 5, with average retail spend increasing by 25% and catering spend by 17%.

How do experiences & perceptions of toilets impact retail destinations?

It may not be a glamourous topic, but toilets are often called out by customers as an issue. They are expensive to renovate and maintain, and without a direct revenue stream associated with them, it is easy to think of toilets as a cost. Despite this, our data shows that investing in facilities can actually drive performance.

Firstly, when looking at shopping centre locations of those that rate the toilet facilities 5 out of 5, our data shows that this leads to an uplift in time that a person stays at the destination by 16%, which accounts for 12 additional minutes per customer. But how does this additional dwell time translate into spend? Customers that give toilets a top rating record a 26% uplift on their average retail spend, an increase of approximately £21.34 per customer.

Retail is not the only category affected. In fact, catering conversion experiences an uplift of 5 percentage points and the average spend on catering increases by 19%. There is therefore direct value to unlock by maintaining and improving these facilities, even if that means you have to spend a few pennies to do so.

How to attract more family groups from further afield

Family groups can be a hard group to target, but once at the destination, they are likely to come for ‘Big Day Out’ trips which are associated with a higher average spend. For many destinations, this group tends to live further afield, such as in the suburbs of a city. When family facilities are rated higher, there is an uplift in their drivetime by 23%, an increase in their dwell time by 17% along with an uplift of 25% in associated retail spend. Showing that better family facilities draw in these high-spending visitors from further away

How do car park experiences & perceptions impact interactions with the rest of the shopping centre?

One of the most interesting findings we came across when looking into the impact of ratings was with overall parking experience. This is another topic that consumers are passionate about; ever hard-to-please, the consumer wants it to be cheaper, with more spaces and of a better quality. But do better perceptions really lead to stronger key performance metrics? In short, the answer is a resounding “yes”. Those who rate the overall parking experience 5 out of 5 see an uplift in dwell, retail and catering average spend and conversion. The greatest uplifts are in dwell time and average retail spend. On average, dwell time will see an uplift of 17% (14 minutes) while average retail spend will see an uplift of 30%, leading to an average increase in spend of just over £25.

Key takeaway: higher perceptions equal higher spend

Overall, our data shows that the higher the perceptions, the more people will spend and the longer they will stay. This is the case when we look at the ratings for overall shopping experience, cleanliness, overall parking experience, family facilities, customer services, signage, architecture and toilet facilities. While it might not be glamourous, strong perceptions of parking experience and toilet facilities do lead to an increase in key performance indicators, proving that there is value to be unlocked by investing in these facilities.

How can CACI help?

At CACI, we understand the impact that driving improved perceptions of facilities within a retail destination can have on consumers’ behaviours, such as which amenities encourage people to visit from further away, stay longer or spend more on their trip. To gain a better understanding of how consumers interact with places, reach out to us to discuss how we can help you measure your performance and identify growth opportunities.

Most substantial challenges for healthcare organisations to address in 2024

Posted on: 25 June 2024

Tackling health inequalities is a tremendous challenge. It requires healthcare organisations to understand the demographics, lifestyles, behaviours, needs, and external pressures that individuals across the country face daily with greater accuracy. Access to accurate and detailed data significantly impacts an organisation’s ability to develop a robust response to inequalities and determine which services will meet local needs.

In our recent webinar for NHS England on “Tackling Health Inequalities with Effective Data & Insight”, we explored the impact of our datasets and insights on NHS England’s ability to tackle current health inequalities and devise strategies to improve future outcomes.

So, what have the findings from our various datasets and our Voice of the Nation (VOTN) Q1 2024 survey shown regarding the behaviours and health concerns of different demographic and affluence groups across the UK? How can healthcare organisations apply these findings to improve outcomes for their local communities?

Half of the survey respondents are concerned about their personal wellbeing and mental health

Personal wellbeing and mental health are incredibly important considerations for the NHS. According to our survey results, these have been hugely concerning for people of various ages across the UK, with 50% of our VOTN Q1 2024 survey respondents claiming to be concerned about both. This is the highest number of respondents for these sentiments that CACI has ever seen in the four years of this survey being conducted, demonstrating the need for healthcare organisations to review their current offering of personal wellbeing and mental health services avoiding a ‘one size fits all’ approach that targets all ages.

Millennials are the most concerned of all age groups about their health

While the traditional assumption may be that younger generations are more carefree and less preoccupied with the concerns of the world, our survey results have shown the opposite. Millennials were the most concerned of all age groups (from Boomers to Gen Z) for their personal wellbeing and mental health, with more than two-thirds feeling this way. This further reiterates the necessity of ensuring that all age groups—particularly Millennials—are offered relevant personal wellbeing and mental health services.

Affluence does not shield from health concerns

Our survey results indicated that personal wellbeing and mental health concerns have been affecting individuals across all affluence levels. While one might assume that higher-affluence individuals experience fewer wellbeing and mental health concerns, our findings revealed that as many as half of the respondents from the higher-affluence Acorn categories of Luxury Lifestyles and Established Affluence expressed concern about these aspects of their lives. Respondents from the Low Income Living Acorn category expressed the highest level of concern for both areas.

These insights provide concrete evidence for healthcare organisations to tailor their services based on the specific needs of different affluence groups, rather than relying on open data or assumptions. These results demonstrate the right healthcare services must be accessible across all affluence levels.

How can CACI help?

CACI can help healthcare organisations tackle health inequalities, supporting a range of clinical areas of health inequalities from severe mental illness (SMI) to maternity and chronic respiratory disease (CPD) to early cancer diagnosis, hypertension case-finding and more. Our partnership with NHS England provides all 42 integrated care boards (ICBs) with free access to a variety of datasets that are being used to tackle health inequalities.

Contact us today to learn more about our partnership with NHS England or to find out how our datasets can improve outcomes for your healthcare organisation.

Most impactful food-to-go transaction trends into 2024

Posted on: 12 June 2024

With the continuing trend of hybrid work within worker hubs, consumers’ food-to-go spending in quick service restaurants (QSRs) remains concentrated on some days and displaced on others. Consumers’ wallets also continue to face an ongoing squeeze, resulting in pressures on day-to-day convenience spend.

So, what transactional trends are being observed across different demographic groups, geographies and price-points as these trends continue? What impact do these trends have on operators’ future openings strategies and overall performance?

Food & beverage have become increasingly prominent on High Streets

Over the course of 2019 to 2023, most retail centres in all asset classes have grown their share of food and beverage (F&B) outlets, noting an increase in over 90% of centres in the top four classes— City Centres, Regional Malls, Major Town Centres and Satellite Centres. Despite F&B having become increasingly prominent in shopping and retail parks, there has been a mixture of increases and decreases observed in towns, transport hubs and leisure parks, raising the question of whether oversaturation has had a role to play in some locations.

Centres are polarising

Over the same time period, city centres, regional malls, major towns centres and satellite centres have dropped in their overall level of consumer attractiveness in line with consumers’ changing behaviours. So much so, that the four largest asset classes have seen declines in over 90% of their centres. The picture is a bit more mixed as the retail hierarchy descends into towns, transport hubs and leisure parks, however, with an average of 40% of centres in these asset classes seeing a decline. The ever-increasing proportion of consumer spend moving online has undoubtedly prompted these downward trends.

Given the vast differences in changes at an asset class level, and with many exceptions at a centre level, having access to detailed data on the changing attractiveness and demographics at centre level is vital.

Customer behaviours towards QSRs continue to change

Many may think that post-Covid QSR demand is just about Tuesday to Thursday, driven by changes in working behaviour, but this is an over-simplification. CACI’s local centre mobile app data analysis within our Location Dynamics suite shows that while areas like Fleet Street/St. Paul’s in the City of London now do have a pronounced Tuesday to Thursday peak, it’s far from the universal norm. As shown by the dark-shaded time segments in the graphs below, places like Barkers Pool in central Sheffield have a very pronounced Friday and Saturday night economy. This further contrasts with central Eastbourne, which has maintained a more traditional Monday to Sunday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. custom and a strong weekend daytime custom.

Ultimately, locations are different, and successful operators must understand the different ‘missions’ their customers will be on to ensure they meet their customers’ needs and ensure that they staff their outlets to provide the right level of services at times demanded by their customers.

For food-to-go retailers to engage with consumers at the right time and in the right place, it will be critical for them to consider:

The F&B offers in local areas
Changing consumer behaviours as a reflection of new and embedded worker patterns,
Centre attractiveness
Overarching market shifts that impact footfall on specific days and times.

How CACI can help?

With these trends in mind, it is critical for food-to-go retailers to have a detailed understanding of who their customers are, where they are located and what times of the week they are most likely to interact with your chain or restaurant. It is equally important to understand your place in terms of its attractiveness to customers and the effect of its location on driving footfall.

Data is key to maintaining a competitive edge amidst evolving trends, an area where CACI excels in providing support. Find out how we can keep you and your team ahead of the curve by reaching out to us today.

Most impactful holiday and air travel trends for 2024

Posted on: 30 May 2024

If the last few years of pandemic uncertainty and budget constraints amidst the ongoing cost of living crisis have shown us anything, it’s that travellers have become increasingly conscious of the cost of travel. As a result, they’ve placed increased value on having an optimal travel experience to justify its cost.

We examined the current driving factors behind optimised travel experiences in our Voice of the Nation Q1 2024 survey, where we asked 2,000 respondents how they felt about an array of travel changes and how the cost of living, airline loyalty and more have impacted their travel choices into 2024.

So, what shared values and needs do travellers of all ages and affluence levels seem to have in common this year? How have these forthcoming trends been affecting the wider travel industry?

Travel spend will increase in 2024 despite decreases in most other sectors

When asked whether their anticipated spending will decrease, increase or stay the same this year compared to last, holidays actually rank third among areas people expect to increase spend in 2024– with groceries and commuting costs coming in first and second– despite an overall expected decrease in spend in other areas this year.

Plans to holiday abroad skew significantly on affluence lines

From Boomers to Gen Z, more than half of respondents from every age group plan to holiday in some capacity– both in the UK or abroad– in 2024.

When it comes to taking holidays abroad, 38% of respondents are making plans and budget room to do so this year. Of these respondents, as much as 50% come from the higher affluence Acorn categories of Established Affluence and Thriving Neighbourhoods. Approximately one in three of the lower affluence categories of Steadfast Communities, Stretched Society and Low Income Living share the same sentiment.

A quarter of all respondents have no intention of travelling this year, and 22% plan to visit another part of the UK, which would appear to be in an effort to save on travel spending. In reality, no matter where you go for your next holiday, the same proportion of respondents agree that cost will be the biggest determinant behind their destination. 36% of those staying in the UK say that they will go on holiday within the UK because they prefer it to going abroad, showing that while cutting travel costs is a major driver, it is not necessarily the only one.

Half of respondents claim no loyalty to an airline

When asked what the contributing factors towards airline loyalty are, half responded that they have no loyalty to any airlines.

Roughly one-third (31%) of those who are loyal towards an airline felt that their loyalty is driven by more than one factor, such as convenience, discounts and luggage/check-in benefits. In comparison, 18% felt there was only a singular driving factor behind their airline loyalty, showing that where loyalty is in play, it is usually multi-factorial.

Convenience is the most significant driver behind airline choices

Apart from price, respondents’ most significant contributing factors towards airline choices when booking trips came down to flight times and route, both of which are also the only factors heavily skewed by affluence. Nearly 60% of the Established Affluence and Thriving Neighbourhoods category respondents reported this to be significant, compared to just 35% among Low Income Living. Gen Z, however, scored this even lower, with just 32% finding this to be significant and instead placing more emphasis on the ease of booking at 37%.

Families are much more affected by cost this year

In terms of holiday planning this year, one-third of respondents said that they wanted to keep their holiday costs as low as possible to maximise value for money and felt that costs would be the greatest determinant of where they holiday in 2024. Among those with children, 40% said that cost is the biggest determinant of where they go on holiday.

Sustainable transport options appeal much more to Gen Z

Of all demographics, Gen Z appear to be the most motivated by sustainability when planning their holidays, both in terms of those taking immediate action but also those who would like to travel but feel unable to presently. In fact, 18% of Gen Z respondents said that they will be cutting down on air travel in 2024 due to their growing environmental concerns, compared to just 8% among the rest of the population.

How CACI can help?

As the travel industry evolves with travellers’ changing sentiments, holiday and air travel operators must be equipped with the necessary understanding of who their customers are, what their motivations for travel are, what they seek from their travel experiences and how to deliver optimal experiences that will drive loyalty. Data is integral to this, which is where CACI excels in providing support.

To find out how we can keep you and your team amidst turbulent times, get in touch with us today.

Impact of turnover vs. footfall for shopping destinations in 2024

Posted on: 23 May 2024

Footfall has historically been the go-to method for measuring a shopping destination’s performance, conducted through pressure sensor mats, light sensors tracking shoppers’ entry and exit movements, advanced camera systems and more. Although ubiquitous across the retail industry, only measuring the number of people entering and exiting a store misses important aspects of true store performance. The current pace of change in consumer behaviors demands that commercial landlords and occupiers know more about their performance drivers if they are going to thrive.

So, why is this the case? What do commercial landlords need to know about turnover and footfall to stay afloat?

How consumers’ changing behaviours towards shopping locations affect footfall

Since 2019, vendors across the UK have experienced an overall 11.5% drop in footfall. While this may sound like catastrophic news for retail destinations, the truth behind the headline footfall figures is perhaps surprising– an overall rise in consumer spending. Although a shift in consumers’ shopping behaviours is undeniably present, its impact may not be as profound as it seems.

Frequency has been a major driver of this, dropping by 31% over the last five years, meaning that consumers have been visiting shopping places much less often. However, the amount being spent by consumers when visiting shopping locations has climbed 29% over the last five years, counteracting declining footfall.

This increase in trip spending is not just an inflationary rise – the fundamental reason to visit and our behaviours on visits have changed as a result. Successful locations are those that are adapting to the new shopper landscape.

How consumers’ changing spending habits, values & “missions” affect footfall

What consumers are spending any disposable income on has also been changing. While retail conversion has remained relatively unchanged, there have been evident increases in Catering and Leisure conversions on the same trips, meaning consumers are increasingly combining a shopping trip with food/drink or a leisure activity. It is this combination of shopping, browsing, eating/drinking and leisure that has led to the overall increase in spending per trip.

These comparisons can be illustrated through what we at CACI call “missions” from our Shopper Dimensions dataset, which illustrate the trip someone is on at a given time, and attribute “missions” to the tangible actions someone takes once at the shopping destination, such as browsing, spending, time spent, etc., to assign a “mission” to each trip.

According to our findings, consumers are relinquishing their less engaged “missions” but concentrating trips around the “Big Day Out” trip. This is illustrated in the shifting profile of the top three missions in Shopping Destinations, which explains why a decline in footfall does not necessarily equate to declining spend. At a glance:

“Big day out” missions are our more engaged trips. They may be less frequent, but they are ones where multiple retail stores are often combined with Catering and Leisure, resulting in a trip spend 2.4x the average mission. Since 2019, these missions have grown to 23% of all shopping missions.
37% of “spending time” missions have no purchasing associated with them. While they may contribute to footfall figures, they do not directly contribute to sales-through-tills. Having dropped off post-Covid-19, these trips are now holding flat at a lower shelf.
“Routine top-up” trips are quick, functional and emotionally disengaged trips that a spend of just 47% of an average trip. These trips are dropping out of our repertoire and can be substituted online.

We can therefore see that looking in greater detail at the changing nature of the trips made provides a clearer understanding of commercial asset performance than simply tracking the overall volume of trips.

Key levers to conclude turnover & application methods to target growth outcomes

To make a meaningful impact in asset performance, commercial landlords must move beyond measuring just the number of visits and start reporting the different levers of shopping location spend.

While there are nuances behind the headlines that apply individually to each location, all spend at a shopping location can ultimately be boiled down to three key levers:

The volume (number) of unique shoppers they have
The frequency of consumers’ visits to a shopping destination
The value that each shopper spends per trip.

Commercial landlords should consider applying the following methods to each lever to effectively target growth outcomes:

Volume: Convert footfall (visits) into ‘spenders’ and target engagement strategies at driving scheme trial; measured by the percentage of the catchment population currently shopping with you (penetration).
Frequency: Embrace the different role that your asset plays for different cohorts, diversifying the occupier offering to give shoppers more reasons to return on different missions.
Value: Determine the highest spending shopper groups to target, segment customers and tailor offers to them to increase cross-shopping opportunities and drive value.

What does good look like?

Now is the time for commercial landlords to leave pre-pandemic comparisons behind. Footfall may be down overall, but the evolution of consumers’ shopping destination behaviour serves as a reminder that relying on the past as an indication of how assets should behave will not lead to longer-term success. If anything, these behaviours have demonstrated that the types of trips people continue to use shopping locations for are more engaged and valuable than ever before.

Our unique view into how and where consumers are spending has been made possible with the help of datasets like Shopper Dimensions, which enable KPI benchmarking of assets against similar locations across the UK and leverage transactional and data spend insights to enhance decision-making. We can help you calculate the impact of each shopper metric and the headroom compared to peers and catchment.

To find out more about what Shopper Dimensions can do for you and your business, speak to one of our experts today.

How River Island use ResolvID to effectively perform identity resolution on customer data

Posted on: 14 May 2024

Background

River Island is a beloved high street retailer that has brought leading fashion trends to UK shoppers for over sixty years, with both a digital and in-store presence.

When the brand began building a marketing and analytics data technology environment with only a Single Customer View (SCV)— a single record that merges all customer data– available, they recognised the need for a SaaS solution that would be able to perform real-time identity resolution on customer data.

The Challenge

Bringing the entire SCV in-house posed a significant challenge to River Island, having to terminate many data feeds and re-evaluate incoming and outbound data that lacked clarity. The original data feeds were also set up by employees who had since left the business, resulting in a trial by fire with their SCV.

The Solution

CACI configured ResolvID, a cloud native solution hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud infrastructure, to supply River Island with data cleansing, standardisation, identity resolution and deduplication. Developed with a Microservices architecture, the bespoke platform offers significant advantages through its scaling, resilience and flexibility when rapid changes and improvements are required.

ResolvID comprises horizontally and vertically scalable Microservices that perform different functions with a seamless interface to enhance River Island’s accessibility. The solution leverages advanced deterministic name and address matching techniques in conjunction with digital and non-digital identifiers specific to River Island customers and their data. As part of this initiative, CACI took a three-step approach to effectively perform identity resolution on River Island’s customer data.

The Results

Leveraging ResolvID has resulted in many tangible benefits for River Island, including the creation of various customer dashboards to monitor more targeted figures and generate better, more timely data that bolsters targeted customer campaigns. There have also been noticeable improvements in workload efficiencies, such as cutting down the time required to action workloads to increase the team’s focus on refining their future strategy of doing more with their data to retain oversight on customer performance.

Once we swapped to ResolvID, the numbers we got were close enough to give us confidence that the deduplication received from ResolvID worked better than our previous managed service.

Ben Anderton, Technical Lead at River Island, shared how this real-time capability now enables the confident and immediate actioning of data and customer signups to produce effective campaigns based on genuine buying behaviours and generate accurate results.

Read the case study

You can access and download the full case study here.

If you have any questions or want to learn more, please get in touch with us to discuss what strategies and solutions that our team of experts can help you deliver.

How Earls Court Development Company use data to help inform a new neighbourhood

Posted on: 2 May 2024

Background

The Earls Court Development Company (ECDC) has a vision to bring the wonder back to Earls Court. Their latest proposals demonstrate how Earls Court will be put back on the map, re-emerging as a destination to discover wonder, an ecosystem for creative talent and a showcase for one of the fastest growing industries in the world – clean and climate tech. The masterplan includes 4,000 new homes, 12,000 jobs, culture, community, retail, dining and leisure. 60% of the land is unbuilt, maximising open spaces and opportunities for nature to thrive. The site will have a series of cultural venues, alongside a commercial campus creating a global destination for clean and climate tech research and skills. Sustainability will be the green thread, with one of the largest zero-carbon energy loops in the UK powering the site. A hybrid planning application will be submitted this summer and the first phase will commence in 2026.

The Challenge

Understanding how current plans would impact the local market, what retail opportunities should be created and how to create a robust masterplan that would address these factors, despite London’s complex market and a high amount of local competition.
Gauging customers and audience — who is already here, what they do, what they need and where they go — in relation to other large-scale central London developments and regeneration master plans in King’s Cross and Battersea.
Prior to partnering with CACI, the company solely relied on qualitative data to understand peoples’ perceptions and inform their decision making, such as speaking to people within the community and stakeholders.

The Solution

ECDC was keen to ensure that an optimised neighbourhood would be created for residents both within and outside of the development along with workers and users of the space. To achieve this, CACI interpreted and analysed raw data and numbers for the company, bringing them to life and narrating the results through comparable’s and benchmarks.

It’s very clear in the presentations that we’re given — whether it’s for local authorities or internally — that the evidence base is robust and ultimately indisputable. That was helpful in providing that context and equips us with a robust way to create and define the master plan moving forwards.

Tom Branton, Development Director at ECDC

The CACI data sources included as part of this study were:

Mobile App Data: Mobile location data generated a precise view into the location’s catchment and visitor profiles, ensuring ECDC would innately understand how visitor profiles and their respective behaviours varied over time. This helped the company assess who users are along with their demographic and spending power, along with insights into how visits changed over a day and week.
Acorn: CACI’s consumer segmentation model, Acorn, enabled ECDC’s understanding of who new residents would be and their needs, and who would shop at the development.
Location Dynamics: Location Dynamics is CACI’s spatial interaction model, creating a digital mirror of the UK retail landscape replicating consumer flows. The engine of the model is a machine learning algorithm that provides future forecast catchments. For ECDC, CACI used Location Dynamics to understand the expected current catchment and spend, as well as leakage to nearby destinations, to provide a detailed understanding of the local retail landscape.

The Results

Newfound understanding of the ‘size of the prize’ of wider London and tourist demographics and audiences. ECDC historically relied on gut instinct when it came to decision making, but working with CACI ensured they were backed with concrete evidence. For example, CACI’s data showed that one-third of the total potential spend in the development area could come from out of catchment.
Enhanced decision-making through evidence-based data on the community. With the development situated across both the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, their perceptions of the surrounding community to inform decision-making — while strong — are now rooted in evidential data. This has served to alter their perceptions to ensure that a comprehensive understanding of residents and borough dwellers can be met and their audience narrative can be shaped accordingly.

The Future

In the coming years, CACI will continue to support ECDC in the data-backed planning and construction of residential units, retail landscape and office space development.

Read the case study:

You can access and download the full case study here. If you have any questions or want to learn more about CACI’s solutions, please get in touch with us.

Why Taunton is a perfectly balanced place to live

Posted on: 8 April 2024

This final blog in our series on balanced locations brings us to Taunton, an idyllic town near the southwest England countryside with a captivating history, landscapes and arts and culture scene that have earned the town its spot on our list of perfectly balanced places to live per our report, “Six Pillars of Success: Building Resilient Places”.

If you have yet to read our blog that introduces these pillars, we consider a ‘perfectly balanced’ place to be:

One that houses a suitable mix of chain and independent retailers at optimal sizes
Supplies unique offline experiences that meet the community’s needs
Provides community infrastructure that supports daily living
Offers adequate residential properties for the community
Offers employment opportunities and flexible working spaces
Encourages time spent outdoors in green spaces

So, what exactly are the driving factors behind Taunton being a perfectly balanced place to live?

Pillar 1: Representation & proper sizing of independent & chain retailers

Taunton’s town centre benefits from a mix of well-known brands like Primark, TK Maxx, Sports Direct and Marks & Spencer, while also being home to thriving independent and specialist retailers. In fact, independent retailers in Taunton comprise ~50% more of the retail mix than benchmark locations.

Bath Place stands out as a particular hub for independent retailers. Dating back to the 18th century, this historic street is lined with an array of independent businesses and services that can be reached on foot by pedestrians. Many of the shop fronts feature their original detailing to truly transport passers by into the Georgian era.

Pillar 2: Uniquely tailored offline experiences

To get in on the sports, music and leisure scene in Taunton, Somerset County Cricket Club has something for every type of enthusiast. Founded in 1875, this renowned sports club situated close to the town centre represents the county of Somerset. To this day, it serves as a spot for watching cricket, attending concerts, catching a film at its open-air cinema and much more.

For those looking for a community social hub that doubles as a performing arts centre, look no further than Taunton Brewhouse. As the region’s principal arts centre, its programme of high-quality dance, musical and theatre shows along with workshops and pop-up shops create a diverse and all-encompassing environment that appeals to one and all.

There is also no shortage of cafes, restaurants and bars to satisfy locals day or night.

Pillar 3: Engaging community infrastructure

Taunton’s centre is brimming with museums, galleries, a library and numerous services to meet locals’ varying needs and interests.

A visit to Taunton Castle, a Grade I Listed Scheduled Ancient Monument, can be paired with the Museum of Somerset, also situated within the 12th century castle walls, housing prehistoric artifacts to modern galleries. The Somerset Military Museum is also housed within the Museum of Somerset. A historic almshouse saved by the Taunton Heritage Trust can also be found on the Museum grounds.

At the heart of the town lies Taunton Library, a public library that offers internet access and printing services. Civic services such as the Somerset Registration Service, Jobseekers Recruitment Services, Taunton JobCentre and the Somerset Council offices can also be found here.

A modern and affordable Nuffield Health gym boasts plenty of equipment and classes, encouraging locals’ maintenance of fitness and wellbeing.

Pillar 4: Support social cohesion through optimised residential design

Situated close to the picturesque countryside while also having well-connected transport links, inhabitants of all ages and demographics can appreciate what this town has to offer. Taunton’s housing market appeals to a variety of renters and homebuyers, with a broad range of housing available from charming cottages to contemporary flats. Average house prices in Taunton are lower than seen across the southwest. At just £786, monthly rental payments sit at 22% of local income levels (below national averages of 25%).

Pillar 5: Sufficient & accessible work opportunities for the local population

Taunton is a major regional employment hub. The town is accessible via the M5 and has good train links including a direct service to London in under two hours, making it an appealing place to live for commuters. Only 1.61% of Taunton’s population is considered to be “Economically Active: Unemployed”.
Pillar 6: Appealing open spaces for the community to dwell in

When in need of a break from city life, locals and visitors can escape into one of Taunton’s many parks and nature oases.

Vivary Park is a popular choice that is just a few minutes away from the town centre. With its namesake inherited from its medieval usage as a fish farm or vivarium for the priory and castle, the park features a mini golf course, tennis courts, playground and model railway. In just a short drive from Taunton, Blackdown Hills National Landscape, considered an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, can be found, offering visitors breathtaking landscapes and opportunities to hike, cycle and spot wildlife.

To learn how our six property pillars can help ensure you are creating resilient places, please speak to one of our Placemaking and Property experts.

How South West Water uses Ocean data to achieve their ambition of eradicating water poverty

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Background

For over 30 years, South West Water (SWW) has been supplying reliable and high-quality drinking and wastewater services to customers throughout South West England.

When the business was tasked with developing an affordability model for their customers, they set themselves a target of getting customers out of water poverty and onto the right support tariffs where necessary. While their own data and customer insight could act as a starting point, SWW recognised the impact that pairing this with CACI’s Ocean data would have on achieving their desired outcome.

The Challenge:

Higher financial strain due to the cost-of-living crisis, coupled with the industry-wide ambition of eradicating water poverty by 2025, made it imperative for customers who require and are eligible for support to be proactively identified and lifted out of water poverty through SWW’s holistic affordability toolkit.

The Solution:

Understanding the SWW brief, challenge and previous models used by the industry, a bespoke and granular dataset was created to supply a unique and current perspective into equivalised income at a 6/7-digit
postcode level, in conjunction with the wider validating characteristics of these customers, the complete SWW household customer and the property base.

South West Water built a model which combines this data with their own billing data at a customer level, enabling them to calculate the percentage of equivalised income from their customers’ current spend on their water bill at a property level. They can further combine this with OBR forecasts of income, housing costs and bill profiles to 2030 to model water poverty and wider outcomes into the future.

The Results:

From July 2022 to September 2023, over 15,000 customers were auto-enrolled onto support tariffs and brought out of water poverty. The affordability model enabled SWW to directly engage with these customers, build their trust and encourage further contact and conversation, particularly where customers may be entitled to or require additional support or services.

The use of the full range of our affordability toolkit remains critical to our ambition, we are now able to a high degree of confidence identify and, subject to further validation, engage with and auto-enrol customers onto our tariffs and bring them out of water poverty. These customers are often the struggling silent and hardest to reach who — without the data provided by CACI and the wider inputs into the model — we would not have had the capability to lift out of water poverty or achieve our commitment of eradicating water poverty which we are on track to achieve and is at the heart of our approach.

John Huxtable, Customer and Recovery Data and Insight Manager at SWW

Read the case study

You can access and download the full case study here. If you have any questions or want to learn more about CACI’s solutions, please get in touch with us.