Bicester Village Field Trip 2013

On the 29th January 2013, the students on the MSc Real Estate Management and the MSc International Real Estate went on a visit to Bicester Village, a retail development near Oxford which is owned and managed by Value Retail.

The launch of the British Design Collective at Bicester Village

Here's what the owner of Bicester Village has to say:

Bicester Village has been designed with individually defined boutique stores facing an open-air, landscaped pedestrianised mall. Bicester Village recalls the scale and ambience of the villages of south-east England.

Bicester Village continues to maintain consistent double-digit, annual same-store sales growth after 17 years of trading. Approximately 44 per cent of Bicester Village brands are represented in the most exclusive of London’s full-price shopping streets, which include Sloane Street and Bond Street.

In 2011 Bicester Village was awarded the BCSC [British Council of Shopping Centres] Gold Award for "The Best Established Centre". Won against competition from a number of other major full price and outlet shopping centres, this award means Bicester Village was recognised in the industry as the leading established retail destination in Britain.

Presentation (and stretching) at Bicester Village - photo by Ye Zhou

Nick French (MSc lead) took the students to look at the development from a property/planning viewpoint and to see the links between the physical asset and the business. The students attended a presentation and Q&A session about the Bicester Village development. The presentation was given by Chris Harris, Director of Value Retail and also by Anna Keddie, Marketing Director for Value Retail. Following the formal sessions, the students also had time to indulge in a little retail therapy and experience the development from a consumers' point of view.

Plans to expand the development have recently been approved. There were of course, a few objections...

Find out more about future developments taking place in Bicester here and here.