‘Slender, but welcome’ fall in Scotland’s empty shops

Scotland witnessed a small, but welcome, fall in the number of empty shops in Q2. According to research from the Scottish Retail Consortium and Local Data Company, the vacancy rate was 15.7% in the second quarter of the year, compared with 15.8% in the first three months. The improvement was largely thanks to retail parks, where the vacancy rate fell from 12% to 11.3%. On high streets there was a small fall, from 14.8% to 14.7%, while vacancies in shopping centres rose from 20.2% to 20.3%. David Lonsdale, director of the SRC, described the slight reduction in empty properties as a “slender but welcome improvement”. The Times (£)