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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

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?

View Experian business failures by region Jan 2010 in a larger map

Business insolvencies across the UK are falling, in fact they are at the lowest rate since June 2007. That's the good news from Experian today.

Unfortunately for Yorkshire, it is top of the list of failures with nearly double the amount of businesses going under last month compared to virtually every other part of the country. It's closely followed by the North East.


LOSERS
Yorkshire had the highest rate of failures in January
Scotland was the only region to see a year on year increase in insolvency

WINNERS
Wales had the lowest rate of business failures in January
The South West was the most robust, with the best financial strength score in January
The North East lost the ignoble top spot as the region with the highest insolvency rate decreasing 30%

Greater London saw the highest year-on-year improvement in financial health yet had the lowest overall financial strength score of any region.

December retail sales almost gave retailers a reason to hope that an end to the recession was in sight but when we looked at the British Retail Consortium research last week it showed the worst Janauary performance for 15 years, there were mutterings of a double dip.

Research into high street footfalls released today by the Association of Town Centre Managers add little evidence to contradict this theory - its figures show that the UK as a whole, experienced a decline in footfall of 7.5% in January compared to 8% decline in the same period last year.

However, when the figures are broken down per region it shows that the recession may not be the primary cause of fewer shoppers after all. It could be the snow.

Another day, and there's another end of year ranking. This times it's Experian's Insolvency Index. And the North East wins the ignoble top spot registering the highest level of insolvencies last year.

It's bad news for Newcastle landlords who've already had to entice occupiers in with ultra competitive deals, including whispers of a rent free of eight years for Tescos at Grantside's Quorum (EGi subscribers can read the full story here).

Nip across the border and Scotland saw the lowest level of insolvencies this year, although that figure seemed to accelerate in December.

Generally, Experian says the average finanical strengh for business in Great Britain improved steadily this year, after insolvencies peaked in the first half of 2009. Mid-sized businesses bore the brunt of the pain with the very large, and the very small avoid calamity more easily.

In London businesses struggled most financially  but, throughout the year the Greater London region showed the biggest improvement.

An easing of conditions for occupiers has fed through to the property industry. There were 144 property insolvencies in December 2009, down 18.6% on December 2008, but, unlike the all industry average the financial strength of the property sector actually dropped (albeit a fairly small amount) - from 84.79 to 83.63. The all industry strength was 81.37.

Click through on the continue reading link below to see the figures for financial strength by industry and insolvency figures by sector.

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%).

It is probably the most highly anticipated addition to Glasgow's retail offer since John Lewis opened in Buchanan Galleries 10 years ago but yesterday the Scottish city got its very own Hamleys.

This will be the only opening for the toy store this year, and for one day Glasgow's shoppers could be forgiven for thinking they'd been transported back into a childhood fantasy with human size teddy bears and a snow queen welcoming the first visitors.

The 30,000 sq ft store marks the first phase of opening at Ivanhoe Cambridge's £100m refurbished and expanded St Enoch Centre in the city centre.

Just a few weeks ago on a tour around the centre the Hamleys store was being fitted out behind closed doors while the rest of the centre was in various stages of make over from exposed steel and cables to decorators. But from the opening day pictures below, it looks like the Snow Queen has been performing a little magic and long may it continue.  

Other new names that will be joining Hamleys in the centre include accessories specialist Folli Follie and fashion brands Henleys and Pulp. The rest of St Enoch's, which is 80% let by floorspace, will open in phases between now and Summer 2010.

The relationship between planners and developers has always been a tense one and never more so than in East Scotland it seems.

In Inverness, for example, David Thame looks at the long running row over a new ASDA store in the city and how it has challenged planning policy in the Highlands. Planning policy is also being called into question in Melanie Smith's piece on Perth. The council there quite rightly wants to protect the city centre's retail but not all agree that the policy is working for the best.

Fortunately there are no such planning drama's being played out in Aberdeen and Edinburgh, well not as far as we know, instead Scotland's oil-capital is celebrating opening the doors to it's brand new shopping centre Union Square. Elaine Cavanagh looks at the wider impact the scheme will have on Aberdeen's retail market.

As for the Scottish capital, a planning battle would probably be a welcome distraction at the moment. Melanie Clarkson finds a city that is licking the wounds of recession and generally feeling sorry for itself as rival Glasgow seems to be snagging all the best deals.

And don't even mention the state of Princes Street where retail rents have dropped by more than 10% in the past year.

But East Scotland isn't our only Focus Lisa Pilkington our Midlands editor and blogger is looking at the East Midlands in tomorrow's mag too. For a sneak head over to her blog by clicking here

More than 10 years work came to fruition today as Hammerson opened the doors to Union Square in Aberdeen.

There was entertainment aplenty at the £275m, 700,000 sq ft retail and leisure centre including a flash mob and ...er people dressed up as seagulls. I'm guessing the significance of the costumes is more down to the fact that city claims to have more urban seagulls than anywhere else in the world rather than being home to the infamous Sam the shoplifting seagull.

But, aside from our feathered friends, the 10,000 shoppers through the doors in the first hour after the midday opening found a raft of retailers and food operators that are new to the city such as Hollister, Apple, Zara and Yo Sushi! (I'm sure Sam will approve of the latter).

There are still a few units available (the scheme is 75% let by rental income) but that is par for the course in these tough market conditions, as are the incentives being offered - an average 24-months rent free packages, according to the developer.

There will be more on Aberdeen coming up in our East Scotland Focus published on November 7.

 

Ivanhoe Cambridge was the envy of many a shopping centre developer in May when it landed Hamleys for a 30,000 sq ft unit in the extension to its St Enoch shopping centre in Glasgow.

While in the city for our annual Glasgow Focus reception I met up with Ivanhoe's Richard Kingston who took me on a grand tour of the centre to see how work is progressing.

Many of the existing retailers have stayed open during the works but of the new space, it was only Hamley's that looked like it was well on the road to finishing its fit out.

Opening of the 250,000 sq ft of new space will be phased with the first tranche of retailers launching next month in time for the lucrative Christmas trading period. For more info see our Glasgow Focus published on November 22.

Click on continue reading to see the pictures I took. Hamleys' unit is easily spotted by it's red colour-scheme. Looks like there still a lot of work to be done elsewhere though.