Sector Focus


Retail


Birmingham and Solihull make retail resilience list


Birmingham and Solihull have ranked 17th and 37th respectively in a new list of the UK’s most resilient retail locations. The report by real estate firm


Cushman & Wakefield ranks the viability and performance of 25 High Streets outside of central London. Online sales coupled with rising


business rates have made survival on the high street increasingly challenging for retailers in the over the past decade. Cambridge and Guildford top the


list of performers in the report titled UK High Streets: Dead or Alive? 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. 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.


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. Conversely, Hamilton, Llandudno,


Newport, Greenock, Ramsgate and Kilmarnock prop up the list of 250 sites.


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 three 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


‘Our report highlights the shortage of East and West Midlands locations in the top tiers’


Closure of House of Fraser stores puts jobs at risk


The decision by House of Fraser to close 31 of its 59 shops, including Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Leamington Spa, was a “brutal” move, its chief executive Alex Williamson told the BBC. Heiner Evanschitzky (pictured), co-director of Aston Centre for Retail


Insights at Aston Business School, said the rescue deal would affect 6,000 jobs. He added: “If the plan is approved, 2,000 House of Fraser


jobs will go, along with 4,000 brand and concession roles.” The stores scheduled for closure, which include its


flagship London Oxford Street store, will stay open until early next year. Mr Williamson said the decision to close stores was “as tough as it gets” and added: “We have not taken this decision lightly. I find it personally very emotional, and I am not making this decision based on anything other than what I consider to be absolutely the best option for House of Fraser and all of our stakeholders.” Mr Evanschitzky said the retailer was seeking the approval of 75 per


cent of its creditors to go ahead with the rescue plan. In May, House of Fraser's Chinese owners Nanjing Cenbest reached a conditional agreement to sell a 51 per cent stake to the Chinese owner of Hamley's. The sale is conditional on the restructuring plan being approved.


64 CHAMBERLINK July/August 2018


The House of Fraser stores identified for closure: Altrincham, Aylesbury, Birkenhead, Birmingham, Bournemouth,


Camberley, Cardiff, Carlisle, Chichester, Cirencester, Cwmbran, Darlington, Doncaster, Edinburgh Frasers, Epsom, Grimsby, High Wycombe, Hull, Leamington Spa, Lincoln, London Oxford Street, London King William Street, Middlesbrough, Milton Keynes, Plymouth, Shrewsbury, Skipton, Swindon, Telford, Wolverhampton and Worcester. House of Fraser chairman Frank Slevin said the retail industry was undergoing “fundamental change”, and the company “urgently needs to adapt”. He added: “Our legacy store estate has created an


unsustainable cost base which, without restructuring, presents an existential threat to the business.” In addition to the closures, the department store chain is seeking to cut rents by 25 per cent on 10 of the stores it is keeping open. Of the 31 stores it wants to shut, it is seeking a 70 per


cent rent reduction for seven months, after which the stores will close. House of Fraser started with a shop in the centre of Glasgow almost


170 years ago. It became a retail empire with more than 100 department stores, including iconic luxury store Harrods in 1959. The House of Fraser Group has annual sales of £1.2bn.


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. “While 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. “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.”


Doug Tweedie: developer appetite ‘riding high’


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