At the Local Data Company, we are always amazed by the rate of change across the UK retail and leisure market which sits at about 20% each year, as retailers, leisure brands and thousands of independent entrepreneurs open and close stores, acknowledging the need to be ever more agile in today’s turbulent landscape.  

The number of units that were structurally changed or redeveloped (demolished, merged, split or converted for another use such as residential or logistics) increased by 32% in 2018 as landlords and place managers work to re-imagine requirements for bricks and mortar retailing. A new report released today by retail location insight business the Local Data Company reviews changes across over 650,000 retail and leisure units to analyse the rate of UK market change in 2018. The number of units being redeveloped increased from 2,646 in 2016, to 2,706 in 2017 and jumped to 3,577 in 2018. This year-on-year increase shows the growing trend for landlords to reconsider how existing retail stock is best used to meet the changing needs of consumers.

Things are getting busy at LDC HQ as we have less than two weeks to go until LDC's 17th Retail and Leisure Trends Summit on June 4th.

Hitting the headlines recently has been the news that Holland & Barrett (H&B) is currently undergoing acquisition by L1 Retail for £1.8 billion. Following on from this, LDC's two talented Data Insight Interns, James and Marianna, have used LDC data to review H&B’s estate to understand the position of the UK’s largest health food retailer.

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.

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.

News broke this week that one of the high street’s old timers - Jones Bootmaker is looking for a buyer as it struggles to deal with difficult trading conditions and increases in business rates.

Toys ‘R’ Us are opening a 4,000 sq. ft. pop up store in Cardiff next Monday for the Christmas season in the Queens Arcade.

Currently, Toys ‘R’ Us only have one store in Cardiff which is situated in Cardiff Bay Retail Park (a 15-20 minute drive from the Queens Arcade).

Sportswear retailer JD Sports is set to open its second major store on Oxford Street in London. The retailer has agreed to lease a 23,000 square foot property West of Oxford Circus at 375-381 Oxford Street. The store will sit within the West One Shopping Centre (Bond Street).

JD Sports' other Oxford Street store is on the High Street and occupies a floorspace of 31,700 square foot.

Using our Map feature with our online dashboard LDO we were able to see an overview of all JD Sports' locations across the UK. Most JD Sports stores are concentrated in the Greater London area and in the North West around Manchester.

Footfall along with the weather are the most often used and sometimes misunderstood words in the world of places/retail.

Often the data is incomplete, inaccurate or being disseminated for reasons beyond the actual meaning of the data.

Stats abound everywhere, every week from footfall being 9% down on high streets in the last 5 years to 3% down in shopping centres and 5% up in retail parks but what does this really mean and most importantly should we believe it?

Data be it big or small, should be transparent and clear.