Town centre returned to growth in 2013, the first time it grew since 2007, with growth set to strengthen in 2014 at +1.0%. This improved performance will be driven by the more needs based sectors, such as food & grocery, and the growth of fixed price retailers. Food has been especially buoyant as retailers have developed their convenience offer more and customer do more smaller, top-up shops. Learn more with these sample pages from our UK Town Centre Retailing report

2. Verdict sample pages
UK Town Centre Retailing page 2
Top 100 Town Centres & Malls
Birmingham
Fourth place in this year's survey goes to Birmingham, which has improved its score by
nearly 10 points on last year. It has seen the greatest uplift amongst the top 10 in the
proportion of multiples it has, with many retailers seeing it as a site for regional flagships.
Recent examples of this include Forever 21 opening its first store outside of London within
the Bullring. In much the same way as in Manchester, Birmingham benefits from a
shopping centre (the Bullring) driving people toward the city centre, creating high levels of
footfall for the surrounding area. The Mailbox, which is within walking distance of the
Bullring, provides a more premium offer. Its success is demonstrated by the Harvey Nichols
store recently doubling in size.
Figure 1: Proposed development of Birmingham New Street Station, 2013
Source: Network Rail, Verdict V E R D I C T
While Birmingham already offers two shopping destinations within the city centre, its future
prospects are especially bright as it aims to develop under-utilised space. The Palisades is
being modernised as part of the redevelopment of Birmingham New Street station to Grand
Central Birmingham and will be anchored by the largest John Lewis outside of London,
giving it its first presence in central Birmingham. There are plans to link the Bullring,
Mailbox and Grand Central together so customers can easily get between the three
centres, providing customers with greater convenience and a wider range. The presence of
the House of Fraser on Corporation Street and Marks & Spencer and Dixons Black on the
High Street should also ensure that this link will not detract from other areas of the city.
With these new developments, Birmingham will be pushing Manchester hard for third place
in future surveys.

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Location comparison
Retailer collapses and a weaker development pipeline have impacted town
centre
Figure 2: Y-o-y change in retail space by location (%), 2004–14e
Source: Verdict V E R D I C T
With the exception of 2007, floor space within town centre has declined every year since
2004, with a particularly sharp decline between 2008 and 2010. This was due to a number
of high profile collapses, such as Woolworths, Zavvi and Rosebys. While this has created a
significant amount of space, few retailers have looked to the high street for new stores,
preferring the lower cost base or greater convenience elsewhere. While the aggressive
expansion of pound stores has soaked up some of this capacity, a significant proportion of
it either remains vacant or has fallen out of retail.

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General Merchandisers
The sector is still feeling the ramifications of Woolworths' collapse
Table 1: General merchandisers in the town centre, 2009, 2013 and 2014e
2009 2013 2014e 2014e on
2009 %
General merchandisers specialists'
sales
£m
7,426.5 7,500.8 7,690.1 3.6
Share of town centre sales % 6.1 6.3 6.4 ––
Source: Verdict V E R D I C T
The sector is still reeling from the collapse of Woolworths in 2008
While general merchandisers have been relatively resilient during the downturn as they are
less dependent upon the performance of one particular sector, the market is still feeling the
effects of Woolworths' collapse in December 2008. It was one of the largest retailers on the
high street at the time of its collapse, causing the sector to decline significantly as a result.
Indeed, the repercussions are being felt now and will continue to be felt in the future.
Figure 3: General merchandisers town centre sales (£bn), 2009–19e
Source: Verdict V E R D I C T

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By 2019, the sector will still be 8.7% down on 2008 levels, the last full year that Woolworths
was on the high street. While the sector has been supported by new entrants and the
relative buoyancy of Wilkinson and Poundstretcher (which offers a variety of price points
and, as such, is not classified as a pound shop), factors that have impacted the sector
include the administration of other retailers such as Ethel Austin and the growing presence
of the larger grocers in non-food and online.
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Some of our channel reports:
UK NEIGHBOURHOOD & CONVENIENCE RETAIL | VERDICT CHANNEL REPORT
UK OUT OF TOWN RETAILING | VERDICT CHANNEL REPORT