Liverpool’s retail core benefits from investment

THE first annual review of Liverpool’s retail core has reported an investment of £160m into new retail development in the city.

The report, produced by Liverpool Vision using a monitoring framework developed by Drivers Jonas Deloitte (DJD), shows that footfall in the city’s main retail area increased to 60.2m visitors in 2011 – up from 57.2m in 2010.

However, it remains lower than in the Capital of Culture year of 2008 and 2009 when visitor numbers were 63.5m and 66.4m respectively.

Last year, Liverpool ONE reported that it welcomed 26m visitors, up by more than 5%, while sales increased by more than 10%. Footfall also increased at St John’s Shopping Centre, which saw an increase of 9% on 2010 with more than 11.5m visitors.

In the last three months of 2011, more than 18m customers came to the city centre – an increase of almost 3m on the previous year.

Vacancy rates in the core shopping areas also fell by 3% to 13.4%.

City Mayor Joe Anderson said: “Liverpool’s performance is welcomed, but credit must go to the variety of private sector investors, who with our partners have between them invested £1.2bn in the MRA since 2000.

“Grosvenor’s contribution has been outstanding and its display of confidence in the current economic climate has not only been welcome but clearly been infectious.

“So much effort invested in the promotion of the city centre, its cultural attractions, investment in the public realm and additional input into management and maintenance by the City Central Bid team has been rewarded with seeing our retail area withstand the recession and seen the vacancy rate decline rather than increase as it has in other parts of the UK.”

The report also highlighted a number of retail developments on site, such as Merepark’s £120m Central Village scheme, the new £25m Forever 21 store on Church St and the £3m Williamson Square store being opened by Marks & Spencer later this year.