High streets hit as cash-strapped Scots shoppers vote with their feet

SCOTLAND’S struggling high streets have been dealt a fresh blow today as figures reveal that the numbers of shoppers north of the Border plunged in the run-up to Easter.

Retailers reported a 12.6 per cent drop in footfall in the three months to the end of April, outstripping the 2 per cent fall posted for the UK as a whole.

High streets were the worst area hit throughout the UK, with shopping centres posting a much smaller decline and out-of-town retail parks reporting a slight rise in footfall.

Experts blamed Scotland’s poor performance on the over-reliance of its economy on the public sector, with cutbacks affecting consumer confidence.

Ian Shearer, director of the Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC), which compiled the figures, blamed the heavy rain in April for adding to retailers’ woes.

He said: “This survey tallies with a number of other indicators showing Scottish shoppers cutting back significantly compared with a year ago.

“It can only be a concern that, over the past quarter, Scotland has shown the biggest drop in footfall of any part of the UK. Some of that has been about one-off seasonal and weather factors, but the essential picture remains of consumers lacking confidence, disposable incomes still being squeezed and fewer people shopping for anything that isn’t an immediate need.

“Retailers are very much looking for some optimism returning when the sun does, and around this summer’s major events.”

Even if big events – such as the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the Olympic Games in London – do give retailers a boost, Scotland’s shops are still suffering more than the rest of the UK.

Richard Dodd, a spokesman for the SRC, said: “Scotland’s shops have been trailing behind the rest of the UK for quite some time now, about a year.

“Fundamentally, that’s because a bigger proportion of Scotland’s economy is dependant on the public sector. So public sector cuts – either real cuts or just the fear of them – have a much greater impact in Scotland.”

The figures from the SRC offered some slim hope for Scotland’s battered high streets though, with the vacancy rate for shops easing to 9 per cent in April from 9.1 per cent in January.

Shearer said: “There are some good signs that this is slightly better than last summer and than other parts of the UK, but vacancies are still high.

“We don’t believe the current proposals to cut empty property rates relief are the right approach for stimulating new investment in our high streets.”

The gloomy news for Scottish shops comes a day after property experts warned that the rapid growth in online shopping meant the days of big retail developments are over.

Mark Robertson, a partner at property agency Ryden, told The Scotsman’s sister paper, Scotland on Sunday, that “peak retail space” has been reached and fewer shopping centres will now be built. He predicted that the redevelopment of the St James shopping centre in Edinburgh would not begin until 2018 “at the earliest”.

He added that this could also trigger a second crash for housebuilders, which are often reliant on shopping centres or retail parks for the building of infrastructure, such as roads, roundabouts, street lighting and sewage.