Life after PPG6-Recent UK Food Retailer Responses to Planning Regulation Tightening

Despite ever-tightening retail planning regulation in the UK, the leading food retailers have continued to add floor space in a remarkably consistent manner, progressively increasing their domination of the market. This paper examines the innovative responses of those firms to planning legislation-responses which have included: working within the constraints of that regulation; exposing and exploiting flaws in the legislation, and circumventing its impacts by expansion into more fragmented markets. Such responses, have in turn led to the further adaptation of planning regulation in order to close a series of loopholes that the leading food retailers have been quick to exploit to aid their expansion plans. The paper concludes by examining more broadly what these developments imply for organizational adaptation and corporate restructuring.