Watch: Ronald Nyakairu from LDC talks retail industry stabilisation

On the 22nd of September Local Data Company released their latest report on retail and leisure trends over the first half of 2022.

Speaking at the Completely Retail Marketplace 2022 event, Ronald Nyakairu, Head of Insight and Analytics at Local Data Company said: “We’ve seen a lot more resilience, we’ve seen a lot more occupiers now taking up space, particularly independents. Last year we saw independants grow and this has continued into the first half of this year.”

The recent decline in closures

Commenting on the reported decline in shop closures, he said: I think (retailers) have become a lot more resilient and a lot more nimble. This is also the first half year where we haven’t had a pandemic impact, we haven’t had any lockdowns, or any restrictions in terms of trading across the majority of the period.”

“If you think of the challenges we’ve seen over the last two and a half years, I think it’s that critical time where they (ocupiers and landlords) need to have those open channels of communication. In a way the pandemic helped draw that line up where they had to work together to get these places back up, no one wants to see vacancy rates up at 20% at shopping centres, or high streets with 1 in 4 shops empty.”

Read Local Data Company’s latest report here.