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Retail Parks and High Street can co-exist

High numbers of retailers moving to out of town shopping centres does not signal the demise of the traditional high street, according to one retail expert.

A report by Trevor Wood Associates indicated that budget stores including Home Bargains,
B&M, and Poundworld took more than 1 million square foot of out of town space during 2011. The vacancy rate for retail parks with A1 planning permission (which can be occupied by any retailer) has dropped to 6.8% from 7.9%.

While this indicates that retailers are moving out of town, Graham Soult, consultant at CannyInsights.com believes that the retail property picture is more complex than the report suggests.

“Many successful chains are pursuing a twin-track strategy of opening both high street and retail park stores,” He said.

“If you look at which retailers have taken over the North East’s former Woolworths sites, for example – most of which are in town centres – many are the same names mentioned in the report as opening out-of-town stores, including Poundworld, Home Bargains, Poundland, B&M and Next.

“Other expanding chains, such as Wilkinson, Store Twenty One and the big supermarkets, are also ramping up their high street presence.”

The Definitive Guide to Retail and Leisure Parks 2012 also found that 82 new schemes are likely to proceed before the end of 2018, including 3 leisure parks, 11 leisure schemes, 11 shopping parks, 42 retail parks and 5 retail and leisure parks.

While this indicates that many retailers are drawn to the large, easily accessible sites, Graham does not believe that this indicates the demise of the traditionl high street.

He added: “It’s certainly true that the amount of retail park space has ballooned in recent years, and that the mix of retailers has been shifting away from furniture and bulky goods towards fashion and variety stores.

“While no-one would claim that the high street faces an easy future, it’s not all gloom and doom – there are still retailers who are interested in the right town centre stores in the right locations, and implementing Mary Portas’ recommendations will ensure that more places are equipped to pull in both the shoppers and the shops.”

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