One in six shops in Scotland lying vacant - report

One in every six shops in Scotland is lying empty, a new report has revealed.

The vacancy rate is one of the highest in Britain, according to the latest Vacancy Monitor study from the Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC).

The SRC warned that high streets may struggle to "ever fully recover".

The vacancy rate remained at 15.7% for the third quarter in a row - an 0.4% improvement on the same period in 2021. Scotland ranked eighth out of 11 areas across the UK.

SRC director David Lonsdale said there was "little sign" of improvement.

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"Scotland's vacancy rate has plateaued," he said.

"Whilst there has been a small improvement over the past year, the fact is Scotland's store vacancy rate is above that for Great Britain as a whole, with one in six stores lying empty.

"The volume of empty units is especially marked in shopping centres."

The SRC said the cost of living crisis and fallout from the Covid pandemic was "exerting a heavy toll" on retailers.

Shopping centre vacancies in the final quarter of 2022 remained unchanged from the same point in 2021 at 20.5%, with high street vacancies going from 14.7% to 14.8%.

Retail park vacancies improved to 9.8% in 2022, from 11.0% previously.

Lucy Stainton of the Local Data Company, which carried out the study with the SRC, said: "Retail parks continue to outperform other location types, which is perhaps an indication that some of those shopping habits formed during the height of Covid are sticking.

"The Christmas trading period seemed to indicate that consumers were favouring, and returning, to stores, alongside their online spend."