Retail voids on the increase
Published: 10 February, 2010
Retail occupancy levels are continuing to decline, although the rate of closures has slowed, according to new research from the Local Data Company.
According to the research, unveiled at the British Property Federation Retail Summit, some town centres have one in five shops standing empty. And Kent, the Midlands and the North East are the hardest-hit regions of the UK.
Vacancy levels doubled during the first half of 2009, but the rate of increase slowed to 24 per cent during the second half of the year, leaving 12.4 per cent of all the UK’s town centre shops empty.
Wolverhampton has the dubious honour of being the worst-performing major centre with a 23.9 per cent vacancy rate. Bradford, Middlesbrough and Sheffield follow closely behind. And Margate in Kent heads the hall of shame among smaller centres with 27.2 per cent of its shops vacant.
Conversely central London has held up well, staying around the national average, while some suburban centres– around Uxbridge and Essex – have dipped below 10 per cent, signalling hopes that the worst is now over.
BPF chief executive Liz Peace said: “The fact of the matter is that Brits now do a lot more shopping over the web, so we’re seeing a fundamental reshaping of high streets. The next government will need to balance cuts in spending with ideas for reinvigorating regions that have suffered from years of underinvestment. This doesn’t mean simply building more shops, but a thorough re-evaluation of what we need and how we take existing empty properties and use them for other things. We must encourage councils to make it easier for people to convert shops and people must accept that we won’t go back to the high streets of yesteryear.”
