THE BIG PICTURE

The Portas Review of the High Street 2011 – selected facts and stats

The Portas Review into the future of the High Street

• An independent review by a leading London Consultant commissioned by the Prime Minister

• It analyses the causes of high street decline and comes up with 28 recommendations

• Not all causes are due to Big Chain stores – the report is also critical of poor business practices by some small high street businesses

• The rise of e-commerce and m-commerce are also a key factor

“I don’t want to live in a Britain that doesn’t care about

community. And I believe that our high streets are a really

important part of pulling people together in a way that a

supermarket or shopping mall, however convenient, however

entertaining and however slick, just never can”

Mary Portas Download

report

The threat to our high streets from large multiple retailers

• Town Centre vacancy rates doubling over the last two years

• The number of town centre stores fell by almost 15,000 between 2000 and 2009 with an estimated further 10,000 losses over the past couple of years

• Nearly one in six shops stands vacant

• of the 565 large grocery stores that opened between 2001 and 2006, the vast majority – 99.5% – were opened by large multiple retailers

• In the last decade, the amount of out-of-town floorspace has risen by 30% while in town floorspace has dropped by 14%.

• Supermarkets now allocate more than one third of their floor space to non-food sales

“What really worries me is that the big supermarkets don’t just

sell food anymore, but all manner of things that people

used to buy on the high street. They’ve been expanding their

reach into homewares, stationery, books, flowers – you

name it”.

Mary Portas

The number of superstores in the UK has grown by 35% while all other forms of grocery outlet

have declined

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Superstores

Smaller stores

Food specialists

Off licences and tobacconists

Supermarkets

small

Percentage change in UK store numbers

2001 to 2011

Source: Portas report pg 18

Total consumer spending rates away from the

high street now over 50%

Year 2000

Year 2011 Year 2014 *

*estimated

Figures rounded up to the nearest whole number

Town centre: the downward

spiral Reduced footfall

in an area

Weakens performance of nearby stores

Surrounding area gets weaker

Increases likelihood of further store

closures

Portas review page 5