Littlehampton High Street bucks trend in challenge to empty shops

The Local Data Company’s (LDC) document, Terminal Illness or Gradual Decline: A Review of GB Shop Vacancy in 2010, states that the town’s vacancy rate is 17.8 per cent, while the council puts that figure at just 10 per cent.

Miriam Nichols, business development manager at Arun, said the gulf between the two was largely due to LDC including the derelict open market site in Surrey Street, which is currently being prepared for demolition, in its figures.

“It is not on the market, it is not available to let, it is getting ready for redevelopment.

“They (LDC) walk the area and note down what they see without any discussion,” she said, adding: “At the moment the vacancy rate in Littlehampton is 10 per cent.”

At least two new shops are planned for the High Street in the coming months, with an off-licence filling the hole left when Thresher went into administration last year, and The Card Factory preparing to move in.

There are also, as yet unconfirmed plans, for the former Gamley’s toy store, which has been empty for more than two years.

Said Miriam: “Empty shops are filling up all the time, and a lot of the empty shops in the town at the moment have offers on them.”

LDC categorised areas based on BBC coverage, putting Littlehampton in the BBC South catchment area, and the data was collected between July and December last year.

The 16 shopping centres in the area with the worst vacancy rates are listed, with Havant coming in first, at 23.1 per cent, Camberley second with 22.9 per cent, Bracknell third with 19.9 per cent and Aldershot forth with 18.8 per cent.

Should the figure for Littlehampton have been set at Arun’s lower rate of 10 per cent, however, the town would not have even appeared on the list.

The LDC report, though, does not paint a rosy picture for town centres as a whole as the year continues.

“At this stage of a post-recession recovery, the expectation would be that retail would be in rude good health,” it says.

“However, the ‘patient’ seems more fragile than had been hoped, and the treatment regime includes some nasty medicine in 2011.” That included the VAT rise to 20 per cent, implemented last month.

LDC’s report highlights the prediction by the Centre for Retail Research that about 10,000 shops, across the UK, will close in 2011, as large retailers decrease the size of their chains.