Last week saw our 18^th Retail and Leisure Trends Summit, held at the beautiful BCLP LLP offices at London Bridge. We had some fantastic speakers who joined us to discuss the theme of ‘Driving Retail Intelligence with Big Data’. For those that missed the event, here is a short round-up of the day:

LDC's latest bi-annual report is out today and provides an update on the impact of market activity across the first six months of this year.

Senior Insight Analyst Ronald Nyakairu was invited to speak on Radio 4's You & Yours this week to discuss the loss of high street banks in the UK and the impact that these closures are having on the surrounding retail landscape.

On 4^th June, we welcomed over 100 delegates into the stunning BDO LLP offices for our 17^th Retail and Leisure Trends Summit. As LDC celebrates its 15^th birthday this year, we took the opportunity to shake up the format of our summits. This year we invited guest speakers to the event to talk about their experiences in retail, innovation and disruption.

This bi-annual report looks at the entire retail and leisure sector over five years (2012 - 2017), with a focus on changes over 12 months of 2017.

Research released in conjunction with PwC last month revealed that openings on Britain's high streets are reducing as the structure, format and offer of our high streets continues to develop. Whilst our high streets are having a tough time, at LDC we think that this is part of an evolution in the way we use our high streets, and through our continuous tracking of activity, we are seeing green shoots of growth for sectors and brands who are willing to innovate and differentiate themselves. Reuters interviewed LDC's Lucy Stainton to find out a bit more about how high streets are faring.

Closer analysis of the fastest growing fasciae within the F&B market shows shopping centres as a key growth area. For example, the top 30 fasciae have increased their presence in shopping centres by +170 units. Of these, the top 10 have the lion’s share with an increase of +109 units. High streets have seen little change and for retail parks there has been a marginal increase with the likes of Costa and Krispy Kreme opening more than 20 units each. The one standout growth fascia on the high street is Costa who have added another +26 units.

The BBC recently commissioned LDC to complete some research on the Government funded Portas Towns, a project designed to aid regeneration in 12 towns across Great Britain. The research revealed that although the vacancy rate has decreased in 10 of the 12 towns (increases in Market Rasen and Croydon), collectively they have lost almost 1,000 shops five years on. Samantha Fenwick from BBC Radio 4's You&Yours program visits towns included in the scheme Stockport and Market Rasen to review how the towns have changed over the last five years.

Data released today by the Local Data Company (LDC) and the British Independent Retailers Association ( bira ) shows that traditional independent shops opened significantly more shops than in the same period last year, whilst the national chains (with more than five stores nationally) continued to see a fall. Independent shops saw an increase of +762 shops (+0.27%) in H1 2017. This is a significant rise from the net increase of +4 shops (+0.00%) in H1 2016. A net increase of +562 units in H1 2017 on the high streets was one of the main drivers in the growth of independent retailing in H1 2017, with this being a +181% increase from the +200 unit growth in H1 2016.

On September 14th 2017, we held our 16th Retail & Leisure Summit where we launched our NEW Footfall Heatmap and released data on the latest trends of 2017. 

The first six months of 2017 produced a remarkable turnaround in some of the key indicators of the health of the UK's retail locations. "Across the half year Retail and Leisure vacancy improved and more businesses opened on the high street than closed. In 2016 the net loss in numbers of units had been more than -1,600 but in H1 2017 it returned to growth." Introduction, 'Retail and Leisure Report: Turning Point (H1 2017)'