Thanks everyone.
Converting the layer to a raster and exporting as an excela text file was exactly what I needed for the time being. I used the convert to Raster function in the toolbox. .
I am currently trying to specify how many columns and rows the raster has, but struggling. I know i can change the cell size but I want to specify a 300x300 matrix? Can anyone help? You can then use the raster to ASCII function to save the data as a txt file which can then be read by my r package.