Almost 8,000 shops now 'have no retail use'
Published: 10 November 2014
Britain's shop vacancy rate in October remained at its lowest level since June 2010, but one in three empty shops have now been unoccupied for over three years.
Figures released today by the Local Data Company show that shop vacancy remained at 13.2% in October, while the overall retail and leisure vacancy rate also stood still, at 11.8%.
In the top 650 towns across Great Britain 7,697 out of 25,393 shops have now been empty for over three years, and have little hope of reoccupation, according to the LDC.
LDC director Matthew Hopkinson said that October had been "a flat month with regards any change in the country's vacancy rates. That said, what this data shows is the balance in supply and demand that we have been seeing in 2014. The increase in development activity may change this but what is very clear - and is reinforced by the number of empty shops - is that the issue of over-supply in many locations has not been dealt with.
"New data that we will track every month from now on shows that one in three shops have remained vacant for more than three years. This equates to nearly 8,000 shops that need to be demolished or re-developed as clearly there is no retail use for them.
"38.9% of the empty shops in the top 650 towns have been vacant for less than a year, which is an acceptable situation, but that means that the vast majority (61.1%) have been vacant for more than a year, with landlords having to pay business rates with limited hope of reoccupation."