Shop vacancies plague British high street

The British high street can't seem to attract shopkeepers as the vacancy rate has stagnated at 14.1 percent, only slightly down from 14.2 percent in February. The results come from a published report by the Local Data Company, who have shown

that in the top 650 UK shopping centres there is a considerable issue with empty shop spaces.

Wales had the highest national vacancy rate, at an average of 17.5 percent, Scotland hit 14.9 percent and England 14 percent.

London was the best-performing region with a vacancy rate of 9.4 percent, while the North West had the highest vacancy rate of 20.1 percent.

Of the larger centres, Blackburn had the highest vacancy rate of 26.9 percent while Cambridge recorded the lowest proportion of empty store space at 7 percent.

Shopping centres had the highest proportion of empty units, at 16 percent, compared with 9.2 percent in small towns. While out-of-town retail parks had a relatively low level of shop vacancies at 9.6 percent, these centres saw the fastest rate of decline in the first half of this year compared to the first six months of 2012, the report said.

Shopping centres have greater vacancies than towns

"This report clearly shows that while the rise of empty shops has stalled it still remains stubbornly high for many towns up and down the country," said Matthew Hopkinson, director of the Local Data Company.

"Since August 2010 the national average has been above 14 percent, with a significant number being 'long-term sick' with little or no prospect of reoccupation as shops," he added.

Many stores, including those once allocated to fashion brands, are being converted for leisure use, including restaurants, bars, cafés and betting shops.

The report said that more than 500 new leisure units were created in the first half of the year. The survey analysed more than 1,900 town centres, shopping centres and retail parks over the first half of the year.

Maureen Hinton, an analyst at market research company Verdict, told The Guardian that retail parks are suffering as shoppers' habits change. "People don't want to drive regularly to out-of-town stores because it's expensive while they can search for big expensive items online and get them delivered."

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