With the latest version of Bing maps, we saw an opportunity to provide our users with a better experience on LDO, our location insight platform. LDO allows you to view what the retail landscape looks like, incorporating maps with our field researched data on vacancy rates, retail category mix and ratios of independent to multiple businesses for locations.

A key part of decision making is having accurate and timely data. This is even more important when managing a £540m mixed development scheme in the centre of London, which is one of the most diverse cities in the world. LDC data has been reviewed to understand the challenges, opportunities and strategies that can be applied to the management of One New Change Shopping Centre in central London.

As the coverage of our footfall technology grows, we are pleased to offer a new report which will allow occupiers looking to acquire a new site to view what the footfall counts are for that market and what trends are likely to impact the success of a potential store in that area.

This week we had great fun putting the LDC stamp on our new office on Vine Hill, Farringdon. Barnaby, our MD, surprised us at our quarterly business update on Wednesday evening with some colourful transfers to go on the walls including a red telephone box, London tube stops and a quote from Bruce Lee. Here are some pictures of our new HQ:

There have been worries for a few years now that the British High Street is dying. At LDC, we don’t believe that is true, however we do believe that the high street IS changing. But it’s not just high streets that are changing, as all three of the location types that we track at LDC (town centres, shopping centres and retail parks) have had some interesting challenges over the past few years. 

The April edition of LDC’s Dynamic Location Intelligence Bulletin (full version is available to all customers of LDC only) looks at retail location activity levels for March, including data on net changes in store numbers, vacancy rates and market activity highlights across retail locations in GB.

On 21st March 2017, we held our 15th Retail & Leisure Summit. It was a very successful event with the largest turnout ever of 150 attendees. We couldn't have done it without our amazing panel, and a curious audience - so thank you again for joining us.

We also released our full year 2016 report on Great Britiain's retail and leisure trends. The report shows how in the run up to the referendum, the number of shops opening decreased and numbers of shops sank (especially for town centres) across GB. However, recovery came in the second half of the year and over-all vacancy continues its gentle decline. An analysis of business rates is also included in the report, detailing worst affected areas, which could feel the impact of this for years to come and much, much more.

LDC's 15th Retail and Leisure Summit is less than two weeks away and it's shaping up to be our most popular summit to date.

If you already have questions that you would like answered during the panel Q&A session, please send them to us by completing the form at the bottom of this post.

Our latest report titled In the balance, looks at the health and trends in the Retail and Leisure industry from the first half of 2016.

The report begins by looking at the current UK Economy, especially in light of the Brexit decision in June. It then focuses on the Health of the Retail industry across Great Britain in terms of vacancy rates by retail offer, location type and geography, as well as persistent vacancy levels.

In the second half of the report, we look at the latest openings and closures activity for both independent and multiple retail and leisure occupiers across Great Britain.

In a few week's time the LDC team will be travelling up to Manchester for BCSC on 14th & 15th September.

Matthew Hopkinson, Chris Fowler, Nelia Vateva, Lucy Stainton and Ronald Nyakairu will be there to answer any questions that you may have.