Queensgate 'miserable' without M&S - academic

Shoppers might find the Queensgate centre 'miserable' without the M&S and John Lewis stores, an academic says

People might find a shopping centre that has lost two major high street names "miserable", an academic has warned.

Marks and Spencer's said its store at the Queensgate Shopping Centre in Peterborough will shut on 20 April.

John Lewis closed its store in the centre three years ago.

Consumer psychologist Cathrine Jansson-Boyd, of Anglia Ruskin University, suggested shoppers might think a centre with empty stores was not a "fun" place to be.

'Staple brands'

Dr Jansson-Boyd told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire that the departure of M&S would affect shoppers' perception of the Queensgate centre.

"It will definitely affect the perception of whether or not it is a place to go to for shopping," she said.

"The reality is that there are often staple brands, like M&S [and] John Lewis, that we consider being part of the kind of shopping experience.

"Even though people don't particularly have the aim to go to those shops, it presents something to people, in the sense that it should be there."

She added: "People will definitely see that as perhaps now not as desirable a place to go to."

John Lewis has already left the Queensgate Shopping Centre in Peterborough

Dr Jansson-Boyd, who is based in Cambridge, said that if retail outlets were not replaced "very quickly", consumer perception was affected "even more".

"They go in and it's an empty store and they think 'oh, this is particularly miserable'," she said.

"Consumers have expectations that shopping should actually be fun and if it's not fun, and its just lots of empty stores, they will just tend to withdraw from them."

Dr Jansson-Boyd said M&S had said it recent years that it would be restructuring nationally.

She suggested that it was not surprising that a few stores would close.

But she said closure would "definitely affect" the Queensgate.

Frasers has said it will move into the four-floor unit in vacated by John Lewis in 2021.