Recently in Retail Category

Administrations have ripped giant holes through the UK's high streets.  Cushman and Wakefield's recent report A Survey of Prime Retail Locations reveals just how big those holes are.

It says the East of England appears to be the most resilient region to departing retailers (see graph below). The region has the lowest level of availability with 6.5% of units vacant. Outer London meanwhile appears blighted by them and has the highest vacancy rate with 17.4% of units availabile.

Source: Cushman & Wakefield LLP

Earlier this week John Lewis announced they'd be opening a home store in Croydon.

It will be the partnership's second in the country and follows hot on the heels of the one it opened in Poole (pictured) last October. It seemed fairly obvious back then that this was a reaction to the retailer desperately wanting to expand but being thwarted by developers inability to deliver (although the partnership is far too polite to ever actually say that).

In Croydon John Lewis has patiently waited while the fireworks flew over Park Place. The 1m sq ft retail scheme collapsed last year and its future, like much of Croydon's regeneration is now under review. In this week's mag we've taken a detailed look at Croydon's plans and John Lewis says it still had "long term ambition" to set up in the town.

They announced back in 2004 that they wanted a presence in Croydon - the same time incidentally that they announced an ambition to be in Cardiff, a store that has is now open and trading.

The fact that they've invested £7.5m in the at home concept in the town and settled for 52,000 sq ft rather than the 300, 000 sq ft promised at Park Place hints that they may realise that that ambition is slipping further an further over the horizon.

• Bedford

The town's Station Quarter comes under our microscope in this week's EG. The council is proposing a £130m regentation of the site but has yet to find a developer, or assemble large chunks of the site.

It's not the only large scale development trying to take flight in the town. Melanie Smith has also looked at the progress of St Modwen's Town Centre West. Last month the council extended its agreement with the developer presumably to give St Modwen some breathing room to get the 19-acre scheme going. Some are building such as Goodman and Unilever at the Colworth Science Park (pictured), although already has EEDA backing and two universities signed up. 

• Luton

Daniel Cunningham asks whether the long awaited renaissance of the town has ground to a halt. He analyses progress at Napier Park and Butterfields business park. 

• Industrial

Last year's take up is nearly half the 2008 level, and Daniel finds that when asked to name requirements agents draw a blank. That said, Canmoor which bought a portfolio of four indsutrial estates from SEGRO is looking to speculative develop. To find out why they think this is a good idea read this week's EG. 

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%).