Les is a quantitative human geographer and his expertise is in retail geography and spatial analysis, in particular the performance of retail centres and their evolutionary trajectories. He completed his PhD at the University of Southampton between 2009 and 2012 under the supervision of Prof Neil Wrigley. He investigated the impact of the 2008-09 economic crisis on UK town centres and high streets. He took a role of a Lecturer at the University of Liverpool in 2016 and was appointed Senior Lecturer in 2022. He has led a number of research projects related to retail: 'e-Resilience' project which investigated the vulnerability of British town/retail centres to the impacts of internet sales, delineation of retail sentre boundaries and economic performance of retail centres in Liverpool City Region.
