Why are There So Many Vacant Shops on Putney High Street?

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Positively Putney explain complexities of the issue

There are a range of reasons why units remain unlet

April 21, 2023

Everybody agrees that vacant boarded up properties bring an area down and Putney High Street has its fair share at the moment.

Empty units covered in out-of-date promotional posters are not an uncommon site and many people ask, why does it take so long for some units to be filled up?

Positively Putney keeps a register of vacant units in its coverage area which it updates on a quarterly basis. It says that there are a range of complex reasons why an apparently well located and attractive premises can remain unlet for a long period.

The worst example is the ‘Wahoo’ site which has been empty since 2014. Cases like this are the hardest to understand according to Positively Putney, but are generally down to absent landlords who bought a property simply for its asset value. Often the owner simply does not care about the area and are happy to hang on in the hope of eventually making a capital gain.

Development landlords can also be problematic when they are either in the process of applying for planning permission, or they have planning permission but something else is holding up the development. This is the issue faced the ‘Levellers Court’ scheme which saw notice served
to all apart from Brewers on Putney Bridge Road leaving a whole stretch on empty units.

Lease tie ins can also result in vacant shops. This is when the tenant decides to stop trading but is legally contracted with the landlord until the end of their lease. The landlord will happily take the income from the previous occupier and the unit just stays empty. This is the case with the ‘Marks & Spencer’ site who still have another three years on their lease, they closed the store in 2018.

Positively Putney believes that commercial rental values have been over inflated within Putney for nearly a decade and are coming down. However, landlords are often reluctant to accept that a new tenant will be paying less that the previous one. This means it looks like the unit has no interest whereas it is actually simply overpriced.

It also needs to be rememberes that lease negotiations are a complicated business. It can take a long time for a landlord and tenant to agree terms, and then renovate a unit. It might look like nothing is happening, but lots is behind the scenes.

Positively Putney has recently analysed spend and footfall data to understand what is happening in the market. The data shows that footfall in Putney has been steadily increasing and is now back to Pre-Pandemic levels. The footfall counts from December 2022 are slightly higher than the same period in 2019, and January and February 2023 are on par with 2019 levels.

The even better news is that retail spend appears to be around 10% higher than the same period in 2019 (according to the Mastercard information with the GLAs spend adjustments with respect to Inflation and Mastercards market share growth). The spend index has an upward trajectory indicating that this spending is improving, and that Putney’s shoppers are not as impacted by the cost of living price increases. The increase in vacant units does not seem to be affecting overall footfall and spend at the moment.

Positively Putney says, “Putney is a thriving town centre with opportunities for growth across all sectors!”

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