Sales up at Piccadilly station shops

SHOPS at Manchester Piccadilly station saw like-for-like sales grow by 4.98% in the three months to June, according to new figures.

The figures make Piccadilly the best performing station in retail terms outside London, ahead of Leeds.

Across Network Rail stations, like-for-like sales grew 3.7%, slightly down on the previous year which was blamed on the late Easter and Royal Wedding.

Gavin McKechnie, head of retail at Network Rail, said: “Despite the fact we had two successive four day bank holiday weekends the results are very encouraging in this challenging economic climate.

“The high footfall of our stations continues to give our partners the edge over the high street.”

Across the network, specialist food retailers saw a 14.2% increase in sales while cards and stationery shops enjoyed 13.37% growth.