The latest report by the Institute for Retail Studies - University of Stirling and LDC looks at the latest retail health and trends across Scotland's towns and cities. The report is presented in three sections focusing in turn on retail premises, retail vacancy and retail structure (and associated leisure sector).
The main takeaways were:
• Town and city centre vacancy levels in Scotland have increased by 0.2% (to 11.9%) - the first increase in five years. Some of this may be attributable to updated data boundaries for some towns.
• Leisure continues to grow in Scotland, accounting for 26.7% of the total retail/leisure premises, an increase from 26.4% on last year.
• The 2017 BMG index highlights that since 2013, all three areas have reduced in the town BMG index dropping from 4.9% in 2016 to 3.8% in 2017; whilst the city index dropped from 3.0% to 1.9% over the same period.
We've produced an infographic which explores some of the key findings from our recent Scottish report here:
(You can also download the summary report by clicking here)