Initial Market Research

The secondary case is encouraging, but the commercial case is not yet proven.

The initial evidence supports moving forward to primary research. Sutton Coldfield combines an older, relatively affluent and highly car-owning local base with a documented desire for a stronger town-centre offer. Birmingham provides metropolitan scale and substantial day-trip activity. UK leisure spending has strengthened, and sauna / thermal culture is visibly expanding. The key uncertainty is behavioural: whether enough people will choose this specific concept, at the required price and frequency, to support the attendance target.

Evidence base, project definition and analytical standard.

This Stage 1 analysis evaluates the market for a proposed approximately 6,000 m² aquathermal complex within an approximately 42,000 m² shopping centre in central Sutton Coldfield. The proposed format combines pools, sauna and steam experiences, relaxation areas and a substantial food component. The central commercial hypothesis is whether the location and concept can support approximately 1,000 visits per day, or about 365,000 annual visits.

The research uses the subject shopping-centre site in central Sutton Coldfield as the geographic origin for catchment planning. Core demographic and economic claims are drawn from official UK sources wherever available; operator and industry sources are used for current pricing, category development and comparable projects; commercial datasets are identified separately where they would materially improve precision.

Where sources use different geographic boundaries or category definitions, the distinction is preserved explicitly so that figures remain analytically comparable and auditable.

A strong local base sits inside a metropolitan catchment of meaningful scale.

The subject property is in central Sutton Coldfield on Birmingham’s northern edge. This creates three complementary demand layers: a local habitual market, a larger north-Birmingham / surrounding-town leisure catchment, and an extended West Midlands destination market. For a concept that depends on repeat visits, the distinction between these layers is commercially important.

These Stage 1 planning estimates are built from the exact subject-site point, ONS / Census population geography, local road accessibility and the property’s own 2025 leasing evidence. The leasing prospectus reports a primary catchment of approximately 1 million people, which is consistent with using roughly 1.0 million residents as the 30-minute planning market. Formal peak and off-peak GIS isochrones should still be produced for final underwriting, but the current evidence is sufficient to replace a generic “Birmingham” market assumption with a site-centred demand model.

Older, highly owner-occupied, economically strong and unusually car-oriented.

Two different population numbers appear in credible current sources, and both are valid because they describe different geographies. The July 2025 MHCLG neighbourhood profile reports 94,181 residents in 2022 for the Royal Sutton Coldfield built-up-area geography. The Town Council’s 2025 Pride in Place executive summary reports around 109,000 residents across the eight-ward administrative Royal Town. The difference should be retained, not “corrected” into one number.

The local plan also reports 75.7% employment versus 70.9% in England, unemployment around 4.2% versus 5.4% in England, and 41.7% of residents qualified to Level 4 versus 33.9% nationally. Only 15% of households have no car or van, versus 32% in Birmingham and 24% in England. These are strong signals for a premium, car-accessed leisure product, though they do not prove willingness to pay for the project.

The 45+ segment deserves explicit treatment. Sutton Coldfield’s median age of 45 means the project is not trying to find older consumers inside a young local market. The market itself skews older than both Birmingham and England. Primary research should still separate working 45–54s, 55–64s and active retirees because time availability, social occasion and price sensitivity are likely to differ materially.

The area has already completed a large local research programme, and it contains unusually relevant signals.

Royal Sutton Coldfield’s Pride in Place programme conducted extensive engagement between May and October 2025: over 3,750 survey responses, 333 ward drop-in attendees, 468 participants in community-led grassroots research and 77 thematic-workgroup attendees. This is not a substitute for project-specific consumer research, but it means we should not waste money re-asking broad questions already answered locally.

The pattern is strategically coherent: people broadly value the town as a place to live, value Sutton Park and green space, but see a weaker visit proposition and want revitalisation. This creates a promising environment for testing a high-quality experience that gives residents and visitors a new reason to spend time locally.

Footfall exists. The bigger question is whether the destination offer is strong enough.

The July 2025 official MHCLG profile reports 1.9 outlets per 1,000 residents across takeaways, restaurants, clubs, bars, pubs, fitness facilities and sports clubs, compared with 2.5 nationally. It also reports a footfall index of 127.1 against a benchmark of 100 for comparable areas.

The Birmingham City Council masterplan is particularly relevant to the proposal’s event-testing philosophy. For the subject shopping centre, the adopted plan explicitly supports a “meanwhile uses” strategy for vacant large-footprint units, says such spaces can be used to test the market for new uses, and identifies family leisure concepts such as soft play, escape rooms and climbing as potential complementary attractions. Temporary use and experiential testing are therefore already aligned with formal local planning thinking.

UK households increased real spending on the categories most relevant to the concept.

The latest ONS Family Spending release covers April 2024 to March 2025 and was published on 11 June 2026. Average weekly household expenditure reached £676.60. After inflation, overall expenditure rose 5% year over year. Recreation and culture increased 9% in real terms, while restaurants and hotels increased 6%.

Birmingham already supports large discretionary visitor flows.

VisitBritain reports that Birmingham received approximately 25.5 million domestic tourism day visits in 2025, behind only Greater London and Manchester among English towns. Birmingham also received approximately 3.1 million domestic overnight trips. These figures do not represent the project’s addressable market, but they demonstrate the scale of leisure movement into the wider destination.

VisitBritain’s national 2025 tourism-day-visit results report an average spend of around £53 per tourism day visit in England. That figure is a national average, not a Birmingham-specific spend estimate, and should not be applied directly to a the project revenue forecast.

The more relevant strategic question is whether the project would be primarily a local habitual product or could also become a destination layer within the wider Birmingham / West Midlands visitor economy. That distinction affects marketing radius, product complexity, capacity, food design and pricing.

England is active at record levels, with a sharp affluence gradient.

Sport England’s Active Lives Adult Survey for November 2024 to November 2025 reports that 64.6% of adults, equivalent to about 30.9 million people, achieved at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week. The most affluent adults were materially more likely to be active than the least affluent, 73.2% versus 53.8%.

This matters because The project is not purely a sports proposition. It sits at the intersection of leisure, socialising, relaxation and wellness. Active Lives is useful as context for health-oriented behaviour and the affluence gradient, but should not be treated as a direct measure of aquathermal demand.

The category is growing, but market-size estimates should be handled carefully.

The British Sauna Society currently states that its UK Sauna Map contains 844 saunas and describes the category as growing at an “astonishing rate.” Its 2026 Bather Survey is specifically collecting information about sauna habits, preferences, perceived health benefits, community and socialising, access barriers and desired improvements. That research is directly relevant to the proposed project and should be tracked when results are released.

Commercial market estimates agree on direction, not magnitude

Commercial publishers use different definitions of the “spa market.” Global Market Insights estimates the UK spa market at approximately US$4.6 billion in 2025, forecasting US$13.7 billion by 2034 at a 12.9% CAGR. Expert Market Research estimates US$4.74 billion in 2025, forecasting US$9.77 billion by 2035 at a 7.5% CAGR. The starting values are similar, but the long-run forecasts diverge materially.

Therme Manchester is the key strategic benchmark, not a direct comparable

Therme Manchester is under construction and scheduled for completion in late 2028. Its official website projects 1.7 million guests in year one and describes a year-round 33°C indoor environment combining thermal waters, multi-sensory sauna rituals, steam rooms, water slides, a wave pool, spa therapies, health and fitness, and family dining. It is a destination-scale project and materially larger than the proposed 6,000 m² proposed format. The correct inference is category validation and future expectation-setting, not a direct visitor benchmark.

Terminology remains an open research question

The working document’s Google Trends analysis suggests familiar language such as “spa day” is more commonly used than industry terms such as “social bathing” or “thermal bath.” Because Google Trends values are indexed and depend on query definition, date range and comparison set, this website does not freeze the September 2026 index numbers as permanent facts. The practical conclusion is narrower: consumer language should be tested directly before the project commits to “aquathermal,” “thermal resort,” “wellness resort,” “spa day,” “banya,” “Russian steam bath” or another frame.

Competition is an occasion set, not a single “spa” category.

The project will compete simultaneously with hotel and destination spas, health clubs, leisure centres, rural wellness resorts, restaurants and pubs, family attractions, at-home socialising and, eventually, larger thermal destinations. The question is not simply “who has a sauna?” It is “what else could the customer do with the same three or four hours and the same discretionary budget?”

Food should be treated as a separate demand engine, not a concession afterthought.

The client brief specifically asks whether a quality food hall can become an alternative to a traditional pub and why the area appears to have relatively limited full-service dining. The official 1.9-vs-2.5 outlet-density gap is not a restaurant-only measure, so it should not be used to claim a precise restaurant shortage. It does, however, support the broader proposition that leisure / hospitality representation is thin relative to the national benchmark.

The stronger evidence comes from the local community research: 85% of respondents identify the town centre’s mix of shops, restaurants and entertainment as a challenge. Combined with ONS growth in restaurant / hotel spending and the proposed long dwell time of a thermal visit, this makes the food proposition commercially important.

Local community research ↗ ONS Family Spending ↗

Primary research should therefore test the food hall in at least three ways: as a bundle with admission, as a standalone destination, and as a mixed-party solution where some members use the thermal facility and others primarily dine / socialise.

The market is highly car-capable, but accessibility is more than drive time.

The 2025 regeneration plan reports that only 15% of Royal Sutton Coldfield households have no car or van, compared with 32% in Birmingham and 24% in England. It also reports that 81.8% of residents travel to work by car versus 70.6% in England. Birmingham City Council describes Sutton Coldfield town centre as having good public-transport accessibility, including strong rail access to the city centre.

Royal Sutton Coldfield PiPP transport evidence ↗ Birmingham City Council town-centre evidence ↗

For the proposed project, four access questions remain separate: physical travel time, parking / arrival friction, public-transport convenience, and the psychological willingness of Birmingham residents to choose Sutton Coldfield for a leisure occasion. Secondary sources answer the first three only partially and cannot answer the fourth.

1,000 visitors per day means 365,000 annual visits. The arithmetic forces repeat behaviour into the centre of the strategy.

For Stage 1 demand modelling, the site-centred 30-minute market is approximately 1.0 million residents, or about 800,000 adults. The scenario below shows how penetration and repeat frequency interact. It is a sensitivity model rather than a forecast; the primary research programme will provide the behavioural inputs needed to turn it into a demand forecast.

The lesson from the scenario is that a plausible path to 365,000 visits requires both meaningful penetration and repeat frequency. In the high-adoption illustration, only 8% of adults in the 30-minute market need to become users, but they need to average six visits per year. That is a very different business model from a once-a-year spa occasion. A pure “special occasion once a year” model would require an extremely broad catchment. A habitual wellness model, membership layer, food-led occasions and destination marketing could reduce the required unique-customer count.

Four structural requirements implied by the target

• A sufficiently large effective catchment that includes more than immediate Sutton Coldfield residents.
• A core segment that visits repeatedly rather than once annually.
• A product architecture that supports multiple reasons to visit, including food and social occasions.
• Marketing and community mechanisms capable of building awareness and habit, not just launch buzz.

The investment-critical unknowns are now narrower and more precise.

This is the point of good desk research: not to create a huge report, but to eliminate questions that already have answers and concentrate primary-research spending on the uncertainties that can change the investment decision.

What to obtain next, in priority order.

Key data points requiring careful interpretation.

Several high-value indicators use different geographic boundaries, reference periods or category definitions. The research treatment below preserves these distinctions so that the evidence remains consistent and decision-useful.

Move from market context to direct evidence of demand and behaviour.

Stage 1 narrows the problem. The next phases are designed to answer the questions that can change the investment decision: concept appeal, price, travel willingness, repeat frequency, food demand, local acceptance, marketing effectiveness and the ability to generate real traffic.

Core references used in the Stage 1 analysis.

Each reference below links directly to the original source or publisher. Official sources are prioritised for demographic, planning and economic evidence; operator and industry sources are used for current pricing, sector development and comparable projects.