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Many retail sites obsolete says think tank
Archived article dated Tuesday June 16th 2009
Local authorities should re-zone empty shops in some areas to allow them to be employed for other uses, according to the KPMG/Synovate Retail Think Tank (RTT).
The RTT has found that even when the economy is buoyant, vacancy levels in some traditional sites stay at around 10 per cent. It says some of this empty property is essentially obsolete for retail purposes and that the recession is accelerating growth of obsolete properties.
The group says charging rates for empty properties is likely to make the problem worse, rather than driving landlords to find a solution, if the sites are no longer viable.
A white paper on the issue, What impact do shop vacancies have on towns and cities across the UK and what can be done to address the problem, has been published.
“Market concentration, as chain retailers migrate to the strongest trading locations has been steadily rendering more and more of traditional unit shops tertiary,” says RTT member Mark Teale of CB Richard Ellis. “Each time the recessionary tide comes in, and stronger retailers flee to higher-productivity ground, more and more tertiary property ceases to be viable for non-food shopping purposes. The trend, which has been apparent for more than 40 years, simply illustrates the chronic mismatch - in unit size, location and accessibility terms, between much of the traditional shop property and modern retailing requirements. Where it is no longer viable for shopping purposes, change of use is clearly preferable to long term dereliction.”
Figures from Experian suggest that one shop unit in seven, around 135,000 sites, will be vacant by Christmas this year.
Tagged as: KPMG/Synovate Retail Think Tank
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