Great Britain’s vacancy rate remained at 13.0% in July, while the overall retail and leisure vacancy rate increased by 0.1% to 11.7% from 11.6% in June, according to figures released by The Local Data Company.
Analysis of vacancy rates by occupation type shows that Shop vacancy in July was 13.0% (0.0%), Leisure vacancy was 8.13% (+0.03%), and All (Retail & Leisure) vacancy rate was 11.7%(+0.1%).
In July there was no significant change in town centre vacancy rates by region (the biggest jump was +0.1% in the North East and a –0.1% in Wales between June and July, the rest remained static).
Retail park vacancy decreased by -0.2% in July to 6.6% across UK retail parks. Yorkshire and the Humber had the biggest fall in its retail park vacancy rate, with a -0.7% fall in July. Other regions that saw a significant change were the North West (-0.5%), which has the third largest number of retail parks across GB. Only two regions saw an increase in their retail parks in July, the West Midlands (-0.1%) and Scotland (-0.2%).
The shopping centre vacancy rate increased slightly by +0.1% to 14.9% across the UK. The main regions which saw a significant change in their shopping centre vacancy rate were the North East (+0.5%), Wales (-0.4%), South East (+0.3%) and Greater London (+0.3%).
The Local Data Company director Matthew Hopkinson commented: “Another month of no significant change in the national vacancy rates but the devil is in the detail with retail parks continuing to show improving occupancy levels and shopping centres showing a marginal increase in vacancy.
“Brighton & Hove saw the biggest drop in vacant units in July at -35, with Baldock in the East of England seeing a 58% drop in its’ vacant units showing that a number of towns are improving their occupancy rates, but high levels of openings and closures mean that this is not always for the long term as the number of openings and closures in July was in excess of 1,200, above the rolling average. At the opposite end of the spectrum Cottingham saw +54% rise in the number of vacant units (from 1 to 3) and Eastbourne has seen an increase of 54 vacant units, from 168 to 223 vacant units (+32.3% rise).
“So while the top line is stable there is considerable variance in performance by town, shopping centre and retail park, with high streets stable, retail parks improving and shopping centres showing a marginal rise in vacant units.”
