Call to save Sussex high streets (From The Argus)
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Call to save Sussex high streets
5:10pm Wednesday 8th February 2012 in Business News By John Keenan
One in seven shops are standing empty in the county’s town centres.
The true face of the high street crisis in Sussex has been revealed in a national survey.
The Local Data Company (LDC) and the British Property Federation, which jointly commissioned the study, say that action must be taken now to rescue town centres from a “spiral of decline”.
Across the county three of the four main shopping areas have vacancy rates higher than the national average.
Crawley has the highest number of retail vacancies at 14.8%, while Brighton and Hove is bucking the trend with a comparatively healthy 11.5% vacancy rate.
Experts say technology is driving people away from city and town centres. Online shopping and out-of-town malls are the two biggest threats to the traditional high street.
Among the big names that have gone under in recent months are Blacks, Barratts and Peacocks.
Matthew Hopkinson, of LDC, said: “Town centres need to adapt to the changing environment if they are to survive and thrive.”
Brighton and Hove
Brighton and Hove is performing well against the national average for empty shops.
A survey of shops in Brighton city centre, from Montpelier Road in the west of the city to Trafalgar Street in the east, carried out by the Brighton Business Improvement District (BID) revealed that 6.19% of shops were vacant.
Some streets, however, are performing worse than others. Air Street and North Street Quadrant had 43% and 20% vacancy respectively.
The city centre-wide survey featured 1,277 shops, of which 79 were vacant.
In the BID area, which covers Preston Street, Western Road, North Street, the Lanes and parts of the North Laine, there are 513 business premises, of which 34 were vacant at the time of the study.
There is some good news for Preston Street. Although it is still above the national average, the current vacancy rate is 17.5%, down from a high of 19%.
This fall is particularly impressive given that vacancy rates have been rising nationally for the past 12 months.
Gavin Stewart, the Brighton BID manager, said: “The survey shows that 49% of the Brighton city centre retail is given over to ‘comparison goods’ – items that consumers buy at infrequent intervals and normally would compare prices before buying.
“This accounts for all dry goods sales, such as clothes and appliances.
“The next most represented category is the leisure services including public houses, restaurants and coffee shops, bookmakers and cinemas.”
Worthing
According to Sharon Clarke, Worthing town centre manager, the December vacancy rate in the town was 10.1%.
She said the December figure is always low owing to short-term leases for Christmas shops, calendar shops and other seasonal outlets.
She said: “The picture in Worthing has stayed quite constant over the last year.
“Some well-known names have ceased trading, such as Blacks and Past Times, but we also have two or three offers for new businesses as well.
“Our growth in Worthing has been around the service industry, such as nail bars, and hair salons etc, as well as catering.
“Recently we have not seen an increase in charity shops but, like most towns, we do have the main ones on the high street.”
Eastbourne
A spokesman for Eastbourne Borough Council said its economic development team is working on a number of projects that will lead to a regeneration of the retail sector.
He said: “The most notable scheme is the proposed £65 million extension to the Eastbourne Arndale Shopping Centre.
“A planning application for the extension is expected to go before the council by the summer of 2012.
“This once-in-a-generation proposal will create a new two-storey wing to the Arndale allowing us to welcome many new stores to the town and offer much larger units to existing traders, as well as to improve the shopping experience in Terminus Road.”
