GUEST COLUMN:
Kevin Ward
Manager
Newport Now BID
There will have been plenty of critical headlines about, and cheap shots taken at, Newport city centre following the publication of the latest report by the think tank Centre for Cities.
Entitled ‘Checking Out’, the report looks at the varying performances of traditional high streets across the UK’s 63 biggest towns and cities.
Newport is ranked as the place with the highest number of vacant commercial properties among the places featured in the study.
Obviously, that isn’t a good place for the city to be – particularly as Newport ranked in the same lowly position in Centre for Cities’ previous ‘state of the nation’ report in 2021.
But, as always, the headlines do not tell the whole story of what is happening in Newport’s traditional shopping areas.
Various media outlets and social media bloggers have taken great delight in lambasting the city for having more empty shops than anywhere else in the UK. That is simply untrue.
There are 76 cities in the UK and well over 1,000 towns. The Centre for Cities report studies the 63 largest towns and cities. It does not measure the other 1,000+ high streets, so we have no idea how Newport compares to them.
It is also worth noting that of the 63 towns and cities featured in the report, only 37 of them provided data on empty commercial properties to Centre for Cities. The think tank estimated the rest using a regression including a variety of data sources.
However, let’s assume the research is correct. It would be churlish not to, and Centre for Cities has spent far longer compiling the report than it has taken us to read it. One suspects some of Newport harshest critics haven’t got as far as the reading bit.
The report shows the reality of the situation.
And that is that, despite Newport city centre still having the highest number of empty retail units out of the 63 areas covered by the report, there is an improving picture in terms of occupancy rates and footfall compared to the last report in 2021.
Four years ago, according to Centre for Cities, some 33% (or one in 3) retail units were vacant in Newport city centre. In the latest report, that has reduced to 19% (or one in 5). How that has been reported by the media and others has been interesting.
The improvement has barely been mentioned and it seems preferable to point out that 19% of shops in Newport city centre are empty rather than that 81% of them are occupied and trading.
Footfall in Newport city centre has increased every year since 2021 and in every one of those years it has been higher than in 2019 – the last full pre-Covid year. The number of visitors coming to our city centre is bucking both the Welsh and UK trends, and 2025 is continuing the uptick.
We are not trying to gloss over the facts. There is still a long, long way to go, but perception is everything.
The Centre for Cities report states that ‘a struggling high street is the result of a struggling economy, not the other way round' and that is a message everyone needs to think about when considering solutions to the problems being faced by the vast majority of town and city centres in the UK.
The report also highlights issues Newport Now BID has been raising for some years:
The high streets with the highest vacancy rates have an over-supply of retail space. That is undoubtedly the case in Newport. There is too much retail space in our city centre; we will never fill it all so something more radical needs to happen. That's why we are pleased to see some of our proposals for the southern end of Commercial Street included in the recent Placemaking Plan published by Newport City Council.
Local and central government bodies & other public sector organisations should be headquartered in city centres.
The business rates system needs to be reformed by national government.
The most successful high streets have a high spend on food and drink.
We are also pleased to see the report highlight the good work done by BIDs across the UK while recognising we can only do so much with relatively small incomes.
Finally, support your local businesses. The majority in Newport city centre are independents. They only succeed if they are used.
Every negative headline has the potential to put these small traders out of business. To repeat, perception is everything.
Let's recognise our problems, work together to find solutions to them, and think positive. The alternative is a self-fulfilling prophecy of ever-decreasing circles.
Centre for Cities is the leading think tank dedicated to improving the economies of the UK's largest cities and towns.
The full ‘Checking Out’ report can be read here: https://www.centreforcities.org/publication/checking-out-the-varying-performance-of-high-streets-across-the-country/
