Retail: Trinity Leeds helps to evolve the high street

TRINITY Leeds has set an example of how an evolved high street could look, as changes to the retail landscape call for an increased leisure offering.

This week, the owner of Trinity Leeds, Land Securities, reported a significant rise in pre-tax profits and said the recently completed scheme is performing strongly as a destination for shoppers and retailers, reinforcing the business’s view that prime centres can still be created profitably in the right locations.

The group said that Trinity Leeds is now 96% let or in solicitors’ hands and said the new Trinity Kitchen – the landlord’s street food concept – has seen “very strong” trade since opening.

Professor of retail innovation at Leeds Metropolitan University, Cathy Barnes, said Trinity Leeds is an example of how an evolved high street could look.

“Land Securities has just put a roof on it; the entrance being open to the street reflects that. It has created a destination shopping experience with mixed-use space and it does have a real buzz. It is showing what the future could look like and it takes business to do that rather than the council,” she said.

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Reports by Mary Portas in 2011 and Bill Grimsey this year tried to get to grips with the high street.

Barnes said: “Portas was saying we need to see the high street revived whereas Grimsey is trying to say that we need to redefine the high street and that might not be about retail. Portas was about driving footfall whereas Grimsey wants to see a change of use and different types of retail.

“Retail will follow if there is a hub where people will congregate but the point of a centre is not always retail. We just do not need as much retail space as we have.”

Greg Styles, head of retail development at Colliers International and based in Leeds, added: “The day of new retailers entering into the UK and rolling out 300 new outlets is over. The new model is to open 20 to 50 units in the major retail centres and to have a strong internet presence that runs symbiotically, providing the consumer with both traditional and online shopping options.”

The retail experts said this means councils have to look at change of use, both to fill the physical space and to encourage greater footfall for those retailers that remain by increasing the leisure offering.

Prew Lumley, property partner in the Leeds office of law firm Squire Sanders, added: “David Lloyd and other gym operators have had huge battles on planning permission for small city gyms on the high street because planners say that’s not what they want the high street to look like. That counters the need to get the high street out of retail and into other uses.”

Jim Whittaker, head of retail for Yorkshire at Baker Tilly, added: “We think the pulse of retail continues to beat. Recent retail press has been largely positive and so far this year the general retail sector has significantly outperformed the market. Leeds has had a retail shot-in-the-arm thanks to a sparkling £350m development called Trinity.”