The top six towns with the highest rate of vacant commercial properties in the UK have been revealed by the Local Data Company.
Every town in the whole of the England, Scotland and Wales was inspected during this research in January to June of this year, however it was found that the top six towns were all from the English region only.
The towns with the most unoccupied commercial properties showed to have roughly one in every three premises to be vacant. The towns were identified as:
The results gathered by the Local Data Company showed that out of 202,158 commercial retail properties in England, Scotland and Wales; 28,991 were not in use, showing a high rate of UK vacant commercial retail properties of 14.3 per cent. Matthew Hopkinson, Business Development Director at The Local Data Company expressed, “At a national level we are seeing stability, but at a local town centre level we are seeing massive extremes. I think the reality that comes out of this is that we are seeing permanent change. The centres showing up to one in three shops vacant will never go back to what they used to be.”
Can you imagine walking down your local High Street and seeing that one in every seven buildings is empty? Mary Portas, who is looking at methods to try and improve the English High Street, on behalf of the Government stated, “There are some towns where it is dead, the horse has bolted. In such towns it was time to give up on the previous model and rethink its uses.”
So the question is; what products and services will consumers still make the effort to go to the High Street for? This is the question, which those in the retail commercial property industry need to have set in their minds. Matthew Hopkinson forecasts, “[The high street is] going to be full of services, and social aspects. It’ll be full of hairdressers, tanning salons, cafes and restaurants. There might be doctors and dentists there. And it’ll become very leisure-focused.”
The number of people actually visiting shops was decreased by one per cent as compared to this time last year. Conversely, visits to shopping centres increased by 0.6 per cent. So could the shopping centre replace the High Street for good? Everything is under one roof, you are indoors, there is no need to bring a brolly and car parking is free. So why would you want to traipse around the cobbles in the rain, only to be greeted by boarded up windows and people waving clip boards in your face?
With this in mind, for the High Street to return to its thriving state and be successful again, it will be important to consider where the future of the High Street lies, and how the empty commercial properties can be best presented to the prospective businesses expected to prosper on the High Street.
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