Long-term vacant shops should be 'demolished or converted', UK retail expert says

LDC director Matthew Hopkinson told the Financial Times that up to 10,000 shops were "clearly not to be … retail outlets", implying that they should be demolished or converted to other uses. The increase in online shopping, and recent announcements by a number of supermarkets that they would close unprofitable stores, meant that these shops were unlikely to be reoccupied even as the economy recovered.

In its report on vacancy rates over the second half of 2014 (registration required), the LDC found that 70% of vacant shops in the large towns with the highest vacancy rates had lain empty for more than one year while 20% of all vacant properties had been empty for more than three years. Given that 49,538 shops were currently empty, this implied that 9,908 were "never going to be re-occupied", Hopkinson said.

"This is the equivalent of five Manchesters lying empty," he said.

"We have already started to see the impact of the supermarkets' decline with Tesco and Morrisons announcing store closures and a hold on any further development. Whilst the numbers announced to date are small beer to the totals, the significance lies with the fact that whilst traditional shops have been closing it has been the supermarkets and convenience stores that have been expanding significantly which has kept the occupancy rates balanced. The question as to who will occupy these newly vacant stores as well as those which have been empty for a while is a very difficult one to answer positively," he said.

The LDC tracks vacant shops and leisure outlets, including hotels, restaurants and bars, in 723 town centres, 1,000 retail parks and 690 shopping centres across the UK. The UK-wide average town centre vacancy rate was 11.8% over the last six months of 2014; down slightly from 11.9% in the first half of the year and 12.3% recorded at the end of 2015. Retail parks recorded an average vacancy rate of just 8%, while the average vacancy rate at shopping centres was 15.2%, according to its report.

The report continued to show "significant variation" in vacancy rates across different UK regions, with a 7.8% rate recorded in London and 16.8% in the North East. Overall, the data indicated "a north-south divide with the North East and North West both having higher vacancy rates", the LDC said. Half of the top ten underperforming centres were located in the West Midlands region: Burslem, with a vacancy rate of 29.4%, and Stoke-on-Trent, where vacancies had risen by 6.3% in the past year, were amongst the most concerning, the LDC said.