Around 13.4% of Britain's shops stood vacant in May, compared to 14.1% in May last year.
That's according to data compiled by the Local Data Company, which visited 650 town and city centres, retail parks and shopping centres to record the shop vacancy rate.

The figure for May decreased a further 0.1% from April, which now means the last time there were fewer vacant shops was in June 2010.

Director at the LDC, Matthew Hopkinson, said: "The improving vacancy rate continues to show that empty shops are being reoccupied up and down the country.

"Within town centres online this equate to over 200 new businesses a month.

"The improving vacancy rate reflects a more positive economic outlook for consumers in terms of price deflation, wage increases and continued interest rates at an all time low.

"These factors are highly volatile so it would be wrong to call the market on vacancy rates as much can change in a very short space of time as history shows."