Birmingham and Solihull rank in top performing high streets list
Solihull and Birmingham have been named in a list of the UK’s top performing high streets.
The research from Cushman & Wakefield ranks the viability and performance of 250 high streets outside Central London, in which Solihull is ranked 17 and Birmingham is 37.
The report UK High Streets: Dead or Alive? groups the top performing locations as well as those struggling for survival.
The focal point of the report is the Retail Resilience Index, a ranking of 250 towns based on 22 economic, demographic and retail property metrics, most of which have been tracked over a 10-year period, providing a rounded analysis of town performance. These metrics include retailer demand, leisure spend, floor space density, rental change as well as broader economic indicators such as house prices, catchment demographics, business survival rates and tourism spend.
Other Midlands towns and cities included Leamington Spa (39), Derby (57), Worcester (58) and Nottingham (61).
On an individual town basis, Cambridge, Guildford, Bath, Chichester and Oxford are the high streets that have shown the greatest resilience over the last decade.
Doug Tweedie, head of Midlands retail at Cushman & Wakefield said: “Our report highlights the shortage of East and West Midlands locations in the top tiers. Having taken occupancy rate, affluence, population, quality of life, strength of the economy into consideration, the region is represented by 3 in the top 50, and 14 in the top 100.
“The report places a lot of emphasis on the correlation between affluence of the catchment and health of the High Street. At a glance this does not make for particularly good reading for the region however, with a growing regional economy, solid employment figures, strong development pipeline and clear vision for the future of the region, the business case for investing in our High Streets, creating a better quality, more interesting environment, in order to meet the high expectations we all have for our town centres, becomes ever stronger.
“Aside from Birmingham city centre, and to a certain extent Solihull, a very high proportion of our High Streets are owned by multiple landlords, collaboration to make improvements can be non-existent. Whilst we know where we sit in the rankings, when we turn to delivering on those goals, the challenge becomes greater. The region provides a number of examples where councils are buying in large town centre assets, such as Shopping Centres and High Street blocks. Whatever your views are on the capital being put at risk, the overriding reason for investing in town centres is a positive one; to improve the areas we work, shops and live in.
He added: “Developer appetite for new projects is riding high, but in a lot of cases the values don’t support the schemes proposed. Solving that conundrum will be the key to bringing forward town changing development in some of our smaller, more challenging markets.”
