Last month I was asked to contribute to a panel event at the Caffe Culture Show in London and had the pleasure of discussing the market with Darren Williams, Country Director of T2 Tea, Maria Sebastian, SVP at Starbucks EMEA, Paul Ettinger, Director at Caffé Nero and Peter Dore-Smith, founder of Kaffeine. Our ‘quiz master’ was Mark Faithfull.

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Pre-Brexit uncertainty sees a -46% drop in retail and leisure property activity levels in July 2016 compared to July 2015. This was due to stakeholders in the property sector delaying major property decisions, such as new store openings, developments and conversions, in the lead up to the referendum in June.

BBC Sctoland asked Matthew Hopkinson a few questions on the impact of the EU referendum on the retail market, these included:

• What kind of projects were put on hold?
• Was this just the result of a shock a few had expected or will there actually be a reluctance to move forward with those projects?
• The shop vacancy overall was only up silightly in July. Is that an encouraging thing or is it just too early to tell?
• What's the picture like from town centre to town centre?
• How challenging would it be to fill the vacant BHS units?

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So we are now six weeks on from the momentous surprise and perhaps shock vote on the UK’s membership of the EU.

Every day since the 23^rd of June has had been a surprise for many reasons – be it the change in the government leadership team, the terrible human tragedies in France and Germany, the attempted coup in Turkey, the change in investment actions versus rhetoric of some large international corporates (GSK) and the see-sawing of the financial markets and currencies.

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