Locum Destination Consulting, in partnership with economists AMION Consulting, has completed an assessment of the impact of investing in historic environments on behalf of national heritage agency English Heritage.

The results are featured in English Heritage's annual publication Heritage Counts.

Locum focused on identifying evidence of the role that historic parts of towns and cities have in generating economic activity.

The report shows that heritage has a major impact on the popularity of towns and cities.

David Geddes, director of Locum said the study highlighted behavioural patterns among visitors and tourists that could prove useful when planning a visitor attraction or drawing up a tourism strategy.

"The comparison of two identically sized areas in Brighton, one covering its historic Lanes and North Laine areas, and the other covering its high street shopping area, showed that there are three times more occupied shop units than in the historic area than in the high street area," Geddes said.

"What more, most of Brighton's thriving restaurant sector was in the historic area."

Meanwhile, research evidence from Plymouth's historic Barbican showed that, whereas people went to other parts of the city for functional reasons like day to day shopping, they went to the Barbican because they enjoyed the ambience.

The same is true of the Underbanks and Market Place area of Stockport, which has been steadily restored and largely occupied by independent businesses. Details: http://www.locumconsulting.com