Out-of-town demise fuelled by petrol

But research this week from Experian provides some hard statistics to support this trend. At the recent BRC conference Sir Stuart Rose hinted that he was finding increasing numbers of shoppers were now unwilling to fork out £40 to fill up their car in order to take a trip to Bluewater and were instead favouring a stroll down their local high street.

Supporting this argument is the Experian data that shows a 5.8 per cent decline in the numbers of people visiting out-of-town shopping centres in June compared with a lesser fall of 1.5 per cent for town centres.

This deals a particularly heavy blow to the major retailers as visits to these shopping centres are often planned and the objective is a major purchase whereas trips to the high street can frequently be for the sole purpose of browsing. Although, on Bank Holidays and weekends I'm not convinced by this argument because shopping centres seem to have just as many people walking around aimlessly as any high street.

But there is an upside to this trend in my opinion as any improvement to trading in the UK's town centres has to be welcomed. After many years of the out-of-town developments being in the ascendant and sucking the life out of town centres (and ultimately the towns themselves) it would be interesting to see the tables turn slightly.

If this is the case then hopefully we will start to see some vibrancy return to our town centres and improved trading for many independent operators that have never been welcome in out-of-town centres where only recognisable names (with their decent covenants) have been able allowed to set up shop.