In July’s half year results Hammerson announced a change in strategy to shift focus more on their premium outlet and shopping centre schemes. To allow for this focus, they are expected to dispose of their retail park portfolio, selling off their 14 retail parks, the largest being the Central Retail Park in Falkirk and the smallest the Brent South Shopping Park in North London. With this news, I am going to use LDC data to understand the portfolio’s strengths and weaknesses as well as any potential opportunities for prospective buyers. My analysis will look at the occupancy rates across the portfolio, the LDC Health Index rating and the occupier covenants based on their historical openings and closures and the performance of their respective categories.

LDC’s SmartStreetSensor footfall tracking network now comprises over 1,000 allocated devices, ranging from Aberdeen down to Plymouth and a huge range of locations in between. As our network continues to grow in size, it also grows in value each week as more sensors age and start to yield comparable year-on-year insights. With many in the retail and investment market acknowledging a challenging environment, the need to use data as evidence to intelligently discover where opportunities lie has become more critical than ever. LDC has been tracking the retail and leisure market for over 10 years now, and through our powerful combination of field and desk research, we have built a rich database of historical trend information which can help us to predict where this market will go next. However, we believe that the next frontier in understanding how our retail locations are used is being able to track footfall, not just coming into stores and assets, but also the pavement opportunity outside.

A bank holiday always lifts the spirits and from everyone at LDC we truly hope you had a very "hoppy" Easter! 

February may have been a bit colder than usual, but LDC knows that warm weather is on the horizon (and we are definitely looking forward to it!)

It’s a month into the new year and that means our New Year’s resolutions have probably been broken, our new gym memberships have been cancelled and that skill we wanted to learn will have to wait until next year. We might be back in our routines, but the retail community is certainly looking fit and healthy.

Oxford, the city of dreaming spires, world-class education and a £440m refurbished shopping centre comprising of 800,000 sq ft of retail space called the Westgate Oxford.

As we wave goodbye to the summer months of 2017, the team at LDC are still ever hopeful for a late heatwave. None more so than our 50 strong team of field researchers, who spend their days physically walking the streets up and down GB capturing all the retail and leisure activity, talking pictures and installing footfall devices for our growing client base.

July was the month when summer officially started, the kids celebrated the start of their summer holiday and parents desperately search for things to entertain their kids for a full five weeks. However, LDC’s office-based research team were hard at work scanning the internet for activity in the Retail and Leisure market. Here’s a snapshot of what happened in July split by retail sector: