Understanding location patterns and market structure of the UK alcohol outlet industry

Alcohol outlets are ubiquitous in UK urban centres and play a significant role both in the development of the built environment and in how people interact with urban spaces. There is a well established literature focusing on the health and social outcomes of the density and distribution of alcohol outlet. However, there is a clear research gap in examining how socioeconomic and urban characteristics impact the density and distribution of alcohol outlets. Factors relevant to the study of the density and distribution of the alcohol outlet industry are diverse but can be fitted into two main categories: variations in the rate of change in alcohol outlets densities; and variations in the change in market share between alcohol outlet typologies. This research takes a longitudinal approach applying panel count regression analysis techniques to model adaptations in the alcohol market across two UK cities, Manchester and Nottingham. Manchester and Nottingham make representative study areas for the UK context, with wide variation in urban density and socioeconomic characteristics. A novel dataset is employed that contains spatio-temporal counts of alcohol outlets across the study areas for the years 2002 to 2020. A high specificity of alcohol outlet characteristics allows for the creation of niche outlet typologies, allowing for the granular analysis of the wide range of sub-markets reflecting the market heterogeneity.