Around one in ten commercial properties in UK town centres are empty and this figure could potentially rise as less people are actually visiting shops when compared to last year. British Retail Consortium (BRC) along with Springboard have published a report detailing how shopping numbers have changed over the last year.
The report showed that the commercial property vacancy rate across the whole of the UK was 11.2 per cent in May, with Northern Ireland being the worst affect area with 17.1 per cent. Wales was next with 13.4 per cent and final the North of England was at 13.1 per cent. Stephen Robertson, British Retail Consortium Director General stated, “Generally, the parts of the UK where the public sector is a bigger proportion of the economy are the ones where customer spending is most likely to be hit by worries about job prospects and cuts, meaning people are shopping less and more retail businesses are failing. By both measures, Northern Ireland and Wales are suffering particularly badly.”
The report also showed details that the number of people actually entering shops was down one per cent when compared to July last year. Wales was the worst area affected with a 9.2 per cent fall, closely followed by the West Midlands at 6.6 per cent. Diane Wehrle, Research Director at Springboard expressed, “Compared with the past three years, a drop in footfall of one per cent year-on-year is actually very modest and the decline has been steadily softening throughout 2011.”
However the number of visitors in some parts of the UK did rise. Generally the south is doing better than the north of England with London rising by 1.6 per cent and Scotland up by 0.2 per cent. Shopping centres also saw a growth in visitors, up by 0.6 per cent. Ms Wehrle said this could, “Be attributed to the early start of summer sales by the multiples which dominate those spaces.”
The south has generally been doing better than the north for a while, but with the Olympics coming next year, could this have an effect on London’s shopping and vacancy rates? Watch this space.
