Good signs10 Feb 2010 15:07
LONDON, Feb 10 (Reuters) - British town centres are losing the battle to keep consumers in shops and off the Internet and local revitalisation measures are urgently needed, delegates at a retail property conference heard on Wednesday.
The average British main street is blighted by empty premises and under-investment, even though the number of store openings picked up in the second half of 2009, experts at the British Property Federation Retail Summit warned, referring to research into the condition of the market.
'Internet shopping has fundamentally changed the face of retail and this has been the first recession to coincide with the web revolution,' BPF Chief Executive Liz Peace said.
'With that in mind, it's vital that council planners act to change the 'use class' (which defines what a property can be used for) of shops so that as high streets contract we're not left with communities scarred by recession,' she said.
The report released by The Local Data Company showed the number of empty town centre shops climbed to 17,880 in the second half of 2009, equivalent to 12 percent of the 149,000 shops covered by the research.
Bullish retailers opened more than 25,000 new shops in the second half of 2009 but rising unemployment and the prospects of higher taxes to curb Britain's swelling national debt suggest business failures are likely to continue in 2010.
High Street stalwarts Waitrose (part of John Lewis ), Tesco, Greggs, J Sainsbury and Wm Morrison have all announced plans to add to their estates or launch new store formats despite grim economic forecasts.
'It's important that long-suffering towns are revitalised, although this won't occur in the historic way of adding more shops to a high street,' said Mark Bowles, property director at music-to-books retailer HMV.
'The cause of vacancies in some markets is a lack of investment. I think there needs to be more local cooperation with developers, but we need to be careful we don't add more space to an existing market which could be detrimental to recovery,' Bowles said.
Northern England and the Midlands account for all of the top 10 worst-hit cities in terms of empty shops, illustrating a sharp North-South divide in retailer fortunes.
In northeast England the vacancy rate in stands at 13 percent versus around 9 percent for London.
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