Newport has UK's highest city-centre shop vacancy rate

NEWPORT has the highest city-centre shop vacancy rate in the UK, new research shows.

- SION BARRY

A report from think-tank the Centre for Cities reveals a striking divide in the state of the UK's high street, with city shop vacancy rates more than twice as high in Newport (highest of the 62 cities and towns assessed at 19%) and Bradford (17.6%) as the lowest in London (8.5%) followed by Cambridge (7.4%).

Newport, along with Wigan and Middlesbrough where more than one in seven shops are vacant all have more than twice the amount of retail space per person as Brighton and Liverpool where the vacancy rate is below 10 per cent.

Newport also has the highest shop rate per 1,000 people in its catchment at 2.9 compared to just 0.8 in London.

Moreover, Newport and Bradford lose nearly 5% of high street spending respectively to nearby Cardiff and Leeds, while Birkenhead loses 7.5% to Liverpool.

Swansea is ranked 9th on the highest vacant rate list at 15.4% with 2.1 city-centre shops for 1,000 people in its catchment area. The report says that Swansea benefits from not having large neighbours so has relatively little leakage of spending to other areas. Cardiff is ranked 33rd with a city-centre vacancy rate of 12.4% and 1.1 shops per 1,000 people.

The report says of Newport: “The centre of Newport has both the highest vacancy rate and the largest amount of retail space per head of catchment of any centre.