Brighton

No comments

TOP TOWNS RANKING 19

Key Facts

Total floorspace: 1.1 million sq ft (104,870 sq m)

Missing retailers in central Brighton: The Officers Club, Timberland, Julian Graves, Mango, Bank, Muji, Diesel

Top five under-sized retailers in central Brighton: Marks & Spencer (-52,527 sq ft), Primark (-25,556 sq ft), TK Maxx (-25,094 sq ft), Boots (-20,832 sq ft), Next (-18,332 sq ft)

Top centres that share the central Brighton total catchment: Worthing (17 per cent), Lewes (5 per cent), Brighton, Queens Road (5 per cent), Brighton, London Road (3 per cent), Crawley (3 per cent)

Area of highest rental growth over the past five years: Churchill Square (8.2 per cent)

Rental growth over the past five years: 6 per cent

Source: Experian/rental data from Churston Heard

Brighton is short on stock and large units, but rents are broadly flat in the coastal city because of the general difficulties across the retail market.

Fashion outfit Zara opened its first Brighton store in Churchill Square six months ago after a long hunt for a suitable site.

Stiles Harold Williams retail agency director Andy Morrish says there is such a shortage of units in North Street that those that had been vacant for some time have all been let. “There’s hardly a decent unit in the city on the market and there is a long list of retailers that want to come to Brighton,” he insists. “The rents in North Street used to be a little ambitious, but market rents have now caught up and about five vacant units in the street have been let in the past five months. If you want to be in Brighton, you have to sacrifice either size or location and make some allowances.”

Although there is huge demand for space, rents are unlikely to rise dramatically because of general tough trading across the country. Morrish says: “The best rent mark is between£175 and£185. It is logical that rents would go up given the space shortage, but new rents are reconfirming rental values rather than rising. There will not be much growth over the next 12 months. A bit of froth has gone out of the market and retailers and consumers are feeling the pinch. It will be a period of consolidation.”

Brighton has little out-of-town development, which has helped bolster business in the city. But it is in desperate need of new developments. There are tentative plans to extend the Churchill Square scheme down to the beachfront, which would create significant new space and would be likely to include larger units – something that lots of fashion retailers in particular are demanding. However, this extension appears to be a long way off and there could be planning and architectural issues.

Brighton will face competition against a£500 million development in nearby Crawley. Although the scheme is not scheduled to open until 2011, it has secured John Lewis as a tenant, which could be a massive blow to Brighton’s shopping pull.

“We need new development sooner rather than later to help ease the excess of demand over supply. If John Lewis opens in Crawley, there is serious danger of an immediate backlash in Brighton. The Crawley scheme is big and the town is ahead of the game compared with Brighton,” says Morrish. “Brighton lacks a premier league department store, but there is an obvious opportunity to incorporate that into the Churchill Square development. There is also a sense that Brighton needs to develop its park-and-ride scheme to attract some of the major retailers.”