Taken at face value, the statistics, which BPF/IPD draw from an annual review of new leases across all sectors, suggest that retailers have the upper hand as landlords accede to their demands for more flexibility. But delve a little deeper, and apply our own experience of the last year's deals, and the picture is more complex.

For a start, the agglomerated figures draw together what we increasingly see as a two tier market. On the one hand, retailers are still very keen to grab well designed, well presented space in new schemes where trading promises to be good - and they are prepared to sign typically a 15-year commitment to ensure their place. Sectors such as fashion will use the opportunity to trade up to larger unit sizes, which currently seem to suit their trading model.

On the other hand, in the secondary locations, retailers are hedging their bets and demanding shorter terms. E-commerce is changing customer demands, and local trading conditions may decline further, so they want an easy exit option.

On the whole, the survey suggests that we are seeing both parties become more sophisticated in their dealings. Retailers look to work their portfolios harder; landlords need the long term commitment of good covenant. As a result, a much greater variety of options are coming into leases, as the two negotiate for the deal that suits them best.

The survey shows a fall in rent free periods - but is there? Longer leases increasingly come with more creative incentives, such as perhaps a capital contribution to fit-out - something we are seeing and which gives the landlord his lease commitment, while the retailer has his initial outlay reduced in the lead up to opening.

There has also been a rise in the use of break clauses, though the BPF/IPD survey does not tell us who is gaining most. These can benefit both parties at different times; for example, a break at year seven might enable the retailer to exit a site where the reviewed rent is now too high to work, or let the landlord dismiss a tenant where he feels the rent review set comparables too low.

At the same time, we are seeing the return of pre-emption rights - popular in the 1970s and a clause that gives landlords greater control over the type of tenant, should the original lessee want to move on.

Reviews, too, are varying more. No longer restrained to five-year, upwards only, we are seeing these agreed with a linkage to the RPI, or with a capped commitment.

So our experience of this year - acting for tenants and landlords in pretty equal measure - is that the market is creating and defining new, imaginative and sophisticated tools to ensure that both parties to a transaction get what is most important to them. Add to this that the BPF is about to reissue its revised code of practice for commercial leases - something the sector is eagerly awaiting and will need to take clear notice of - and we should all question the need for further government intervention in the retail sector. There are plenty of other issues retailers and landlords have to grapple with in order to keep the retail sector buoyant and their businesses in the black, without fear of further legislation that, as far as our clients are telling us, is largely unnecessary and unwelcome.

l Val Mather and Matt Lonergan are partners in DLA Piper's real estate team

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