Insight: top ten locations with potential for additional out-of-town retail space
New research has revealed the ten UK towns and cities with greatest potential for uplift in out-of-town retail space.
The Savills study, which examined the current out-of-town retail provison in every UK market except for London, shows Brighton taking the top spot with the city requiring an additional 587,000 square feet of out-of-town retail space to bring it in line with the national average of 2.96 square feet per shopper.
Brighton was followed by Liverpool at 407,000 square feet and Stourbridge at 402,000 square feet.
The analysis also shows that Leicester and Bath would require more than 300,000 square feet of additional out-of-town retail space to bring their density in line with the national average, while Newcastle, Hastings and Witney could all support over 200,000 square feet. Lancaster and Portsmouth also made the top ten, requiring 196,000 square feet and 185,000 square feet of extra space respectively.
Dominic Rodbourne, head of out of town retail at Savills, adds: “Consumer confidence appears to have weathered the political uncertainty of 2016 well, and whilst the development of new parks is far less than ten to fifteen years ago, there is still scope for landlords to develop new out-of-town schemes and capitalise on this format which is ever popular with both occupiers and consumers. There are several large out-of-town retail developments proposed across the UK, including Liverpool Shopping Park and Castle Acres Shopping Park in Leicester, with both of those cities ranking in our top ten.”
