Rents on even the best located shops have begun to fall across the UK outside London, with the pace of decline expected to accelerate in the wake of a spate of recent retailer failures.
Across 450 prime retail locations surveyed by Colliers International, a commercial property agent, rents rose an average of 0.8% in the year to April, exactly half the rate of growth reported last year.
However, stripping out London resulted in a decline of 0.7%, against a 0.7 % rise last year. A fifth of locations saw an outright fall in rents.
