Recently in Northern Ireland Category

Well it wasn't as bad as Synovate forecast it might be back in January but the bad weather's been blamed yet again for a bad February in the shops.

Synovate released it's February figures today - you can click on the map to see a larger version - and while it had been predicting a 6% drop back in January, the actual figures show that the UK as a whole is down 1.3% on this time last year and 3% on January.

Wales and the South west were the only region to show growth, although compared to January this was pretty marginal.

Year-on-year the biggest losers were Scotland and Northern Ireland, but despite a disastrous month for the two, where figures fell 6% on last year and 4% on January, Synovate is forecasting a very good March

Synovate now reckon it's unlikely that the Easter vacation will have enough of an impact to salvage what it calls "another month of shopper fatigue". As someone very wisely commented on this blog recently, shouldn't all that cold weather make everyone rush out and by big woolly coats and thick jumpers?

Click on View image to see larger maps.

So Britain's biggest retailer Tesco, announced its strongest sales for three years today. For it, the big freeze and ensuing panic buying to stock up on storecupboard items can't have hurt. Nor can reports on the BBC's Today programme  that because of the freezing conditions we can't get to the high street sales and, faced with being forced to stay indoors, we're splurging on contraception instead.

But for the rest of the high street it's been less cheery (think of Debenhams warning today and Marks and Spencer's performance last week).

Synovate's retail traffic weathermap (see above) shows there's been lower footfall than forecast for December as wintry weather made shopping trips more difficult meaning there were fewer early bargain hunters.

There's a definite north/south divide with footfall dropping 3% in the midlands and northern england (which covers, the north east, north west Yorkshire and the Humber). In contrast  it rose in London and the south east (4%) and Wales and the south west(nearly 3%).

There are two Focuses to feast your eyes on in this week's mag: Ireland & the start of our trip around the M25 with the M25 South East features.

Ireland

Developers: Batten down the hatches its the Wild West out there. That's what David Thame found out when he went looking for what happened to Ireland's gold rush. In this week's mag he takes a closer look at how it happened and analyses who's the last man standing.

NAMA: Last week the Irish government's finalised plans for its "bad bank" and the true extent of the programme started to become apparent. David Thame's takes a look at just what the developers think of NAMA and if it really is a good thing for the local property market. He finds out that while many don't particularly like the programme the alternatives could be far worse.

Overview:IPD figures show Ireland is the hardest hit country in Europe. With CBRE predicting an office vacancy of 27% by 2010 Melanie Smith looks at the long term implications for the office market. She also takes a look at the retail and lesiure market as administrations continue to rise.

M25 South East

Offices & industrial: The supply tap continues to drip as the last few schemes that started before the recession come to fruition. But what is the fate of these schemes with take up down 60% in the first half and headline rents falling. Simon Jack investigates.

Meanwhile in retail, Elaine Cavanagh finds an unsurprisingly subdued local market. She takes an in depth look at what Croydon and Crawley are doing to counter it.  

Picture from Flickr by anyjazz65 used under the Creative Commons license

 

The Focus team is in Northern Ireland this week, and for those unable to wait for the magazine to drop through their letterbox tomorrow here's a sneak peek at what's on offer.

• Retail: Our editorial assistant Melanie Smith flew over to Belfast to see Victoria Square for herself. The scheme opened in March 2008 just as the retail market took a nosedive. It has 21 out of 98 shops still to let (there's a separate post about this). Melanie talks to owner Multi Development's about the deals on offer for occupiers.

Her pictures from the visit are available on the Focus Flickr page 

• Offices: Over half of Belfast's office space is let to the public sector. With the cancellation of the Workplace 2010 programme and a cutback in public sector budgets what can be done to stop vacancy rates sky rocketing in a city where over 500, 000 sq ft of new office space is empty?

We've also talked to Michael Graham, director of corporate real estate at the Titanic Quarter, who had been heavily relying on the banking sector to take space. How confident is he feeling now?

• Newry: Closer to the border we take a look at regeneration underway in Newry. The falling sterling and cuts to UK VAT have helped boost the small town's trade, but is that enough for the Hill Partnership's £100m plans to take off, especially when development in major towns is, quite  frankly, marginal at the moment?

 For all that and more, read Saturday's Estates Gazette 

Photo by antwerpenR used under Creative Commons from Flickr

Take a quick look at the Mamas & Papas hoarding in Belfast's Victoria Square shopping centre as you walk past and you'd be forgiven for thinking the unit belonged to the baby gear retailer. However the hoarding is in fact being used to brighten up and disguise what would otherwise be a dull vacant unit.

And that is the point of course as almost a quarter of the shopping centre is made up of empty units similarly wrapped - some in quite prominent parts of the Mall. These clever cover ups mean you hardly notice the vacancies because instead they lure you subconsciously onto the store next door.

But while they may draw people in and around the shopping centre, it's quite another issue to actually get people spending.

For more pictures click here for our Flickr page