Quite how tough things are for those that own property at the moment is becoming clearer with every passing week. Last week’s news that retail’s self-confessed 'Del Boy' Chris Dawson is in the process of building a make-shift portfolio of stores is proof that for landlords, any retail tenant is better than no tenant.

Trading Bargains’ extraordinary deal to build a raft of temporary stores selling stock from the defunct MFI confirms that the manual on leasing a retail park has now been shredded, and talk of maintaining a park’s tenant mix now seems like a luxury of days gone by.

Not for years has it been so worth looking into the fine details of leases to see what landlords have had to do to get or keep a tenant – even those that have gone bust.

Precisely what Stylo boss Michael Ziff manages to get out of landlords on the stores he has decided are worth acquiring from the adminstrator is yet to emerge, but it’s likely that he will manage to get infinitely better deals on them. Going bust isn’t what it used to be.

Landlords will do almost anything to avoid the nightmare of voids, which make their banks even more nervous than they already are. Having a tenant is an insurance policy, not least against paying the dreaded empty property rate.

We are entering the perverse scenario of survival of the weakest and it is not clear to see how much further it can go.

The result might well be a major shift in the high street and the out of town line up. New retailers are seizing opportunities that a year ago didn’t exist and internationals retailers are waiting in the wings.

Or perhaps where once there stood a proud high street there will be nothing but temporary retailers selling off the last scraps of stock with canvas banners covering erstwhile gleaming fascias.

An unpleasant fantasy, perhaps, but it’s a brave pundit that rules out anything at the moment.

Topics