Introduction

This report provides detailed ranking and information on the Top 100 GB towns and shopping centres, providing shopping populations, vacancy rates, sizes and more. Moreover, it includes data and trends for town centre retailing as a whole and by sector over the last 10 years and forecasts for the next five years, as well as comprehensive analysis of current and future town centre retail issues.

Scope of this research

• Market value and growth, space, sales densities and store numbers 1998-2008 with forecasts to 2013
• Comprehensive analysis of the pipeline of all shopping centre developments over 25,000 sq m due to open 2008-2015
• Review of performance of recently opened shopping centres, such as Westfield London and Cardiff St Davids
• Analysis of top 100 GB shopping destinations by 12 criteria including vacancy rates, size, proportion of AB shoppers and size of shopping population

Research and analysis highlights

As the largest, most discretionary location and one that is being squeezed by the transfer of spend to the grocers and online, town centre is shrinking the fastest of any retail location, contracting by 3.4% in 2009. The resultant shakeout to remove excess capacity across several sectors is permanently changing the face of high street retailing.

While a number of retail developments have been put on hold owing to the economic downturn, the majority of Verdict's Top 10 town centres have experienced recent new developments. This is a reflection of the increasing pull of these locations to the detriment of secondary town centres, a trend that we expect the economic downturn to accelerate.

Over the past year, the rise in vacancy rates has forced retailers and landlords to be more flexible. Landlords have to be more proactive in tempting retailers to take on space meaning there are some attractive deals on offer for retailers.

Key reasons to purchase this research

• Identify the leading town centre locations and how they are performing relatively to each other and their own history
• Track town centre's retail performance as a whole, or by individual sector, both over the last decade and its likely performance moving forward
• Identify which areas of the UK are set for development of their retail propositions and how they are likely to fare