According to CB Hillier Parkers latest Shopping Centre Master List publication, Great Britain's stock of retail floorspace now totals almost 1.2 billion sf, equivalent to 20 sf per capita. And purpose-built shopping centres account for 12.3% of the total.
It is the larger shopping malls that have been performing best of all. Vacancies in the larger shopping centres (300,000 sf or more) currently stand at less than 3.5%. But others are having a harder time of it: over 50% of reported vacancies are located in less than 10% of shopping centres, and these tend to be the older 1960s and 1970s malls.
CB Hillier Parker's director of retail Jenefer Greenwood says the slowdown in new development is largely responsible for the low level of vacancies: 'Shopping centre development activity has been sluggish for a number of years, hence the low overall vacancy rates reported. The higher vacancy rates in the older stock, particularly those of first generation supermarket-anchored precincts serving small markets, result in large part from market share shifts in favour of major towns and city centres.'
Greenwood pointed out that just 75 trading locations nationally now attract more than half the population of the country for non-food shopping purposes. 'Development activity, and demand for shop space, is heavily concentrated in these same 75 trading location,' she says.
But even in the best locations, Greenwood counselled that developers cannot afford to be cavalier with retailers' requirements. 'Whatever the vacancy levels, the difficult High Street trading conditions of the last few years has forced retail occupiers to look much more closely at stock quality and market size issues,' she notes. 'New developments that do not meet both customer and occupier needs will inevitably be very difficult to let regardless of where they are located.'
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