Manchester ranked top for retail and leisure offering

Manchester city centre has been ranked as the top commercial city, in a league of 9,000 retail and leisure markets across the UK, according to Colliers’ inaugural LocateVenues retail research.

The report said that Manchester had “shown resilience in the face of nationwide store closures during the pandemic,” to retain the largest range of retail and leisure offerings across the UK, in one shoppable location. The northern powerhouse claimed the top stop ahead of Glasgow centre, which came in second, and Leeds centre in third, while Birmingham centre was fourth and Liverpool centre fifth in the ranking.

Colliers’ inaugural LocateVenues retail rankings report monitors the retail and leisure offering at commercial venues across the UK and looks at metrics including venue type, brand presence and strength, vacancy and refurbishment rates, floorspace availability, price positioning (value vs luxury) and category mix.

The 9,000 venues in the research, which are defined as individual destinations, range from major city centres; local town and neighbourhood shopping streets; malls; designer outlets; retail and leisure parks; to standalone grocery stores, service stations; retail in rail stations, hospitals and business parks.

David Fox, co-head of retail at Colliers, said in a statement: “The diversity of retail and leisure offering in Manchester is what has allowed the city to maintain its top ranking. The findings of LocateVenue show that to thrive, destinations need to provide a genuine mix of brands and services, a large proportion of independents and an offering that is matched to the needs of the catchment area.

“Gone are the days when high streets or retail parks could rely on the provision of chains and anchor stores, real thought needs to be given to the occupier mix, with much of the decision making centred around a deep understanding of the local population.”

The data also revealed that local centres and high streets are out-performing some of the larger destinations in the recovery from Covid-19 and that smaller venues have grown by circa nine percent between 2019 and 2022.

In addition, the research reveals that based on occupier presence, the biggest growth took place for retail parks, which saw its average score increase by 23 percent when compared to 2019, driven by “their ability to provide a more socially distanced shopping experience,” added Colliers.

Retail parks also benefit from a dense catchment area, providing occupiers with attractive investment opportunities for expansion. While out of town malls saw a dip in their scores by 4 percent, having been impacted particularly hard by the closure of anchor stores.