The Local Data Company has released figures on shop vacancy, which has remained at 13.2% through October. Overall retail and leisure vacancy has remained at 11.8%.

The study found that in 650 of the top towns inBritain 7,697 of 25,393 shops have been empty for more than 3 years. The LDC believes they have little chance of reoccupation.

 "New data that we will track every month from now on shows that one in three shops have remained vacant for more than three years. This equates to nearly 8,000 shops that need to be demolished or re-developed as clearly there is no retail use for them. 

38.9% of the empty shops in the top 650 towns have been vacant for less than a year, which is an acceptable situation, but that means that the vast majority (61.1%) have been vacant for more than a year, with landlords having to pay business rates with limited hope of reoccupation."

- LDC director Matthew Hopkinson