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Ten percent of high street shops empty says BRC

More than 10 percent of all shops in the UK were vacant as of the end of May, according to the British Retail Consortium.

The BBC reports that the on average, 11.2 percent of shops were empty. In the north of England, 13.1 percent are vacant, with the figure rising to 17.1 percent in Northern Ireland.

These figures have been attributed to rising inflation, job losses and poor increases in age growth.

The number of people entering shops was on average 1 percent lower than in July 2010, but this figure fell to 9.9 percent in Wales and 6.6 percent in the West Midlands. However, London has seen a 1.6 percent increase in customers.

The figures show great differences in the state of the retail sector throughout the country, though statistics released last week did show slight growth in the retail sector in July, up 0.2 percent from June.

Stephen Roberson, director general of the British Retail Consortium commented: “Generally the parts of the UK where the public sector is a bigger proportion of the economy are the ones where customer spending is most likely to be hit by worries about job prospects and cuts, meaning people are shopping less and more retail businesses are failing.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .