• Why Is Measuring Risk Important to Retail Investors?

The UK retail sector has been significantly impacted over the last 10 years by company administrations and Company Voluntary Administration (CVAs), with 2018 even being referenced to as “The Year of the CVA” due to the number of high-profile companies using the restructuring tool to avoid insolvency.

With rising inflation, increased costs from public policy changes on National Insurance, tariff impacts and global conflict, the resilience and financial health of retailers has never been more important for investors assessing and monitoring their portfolios.

• What Retail Analytics Tools Can Help Retail Investors?

With the upcoming release of new features to Retail Analytics Pro product, Green Street will enhance its analytical offering by gaining new data on the corporate risk of national chains across the UK from Company Watch, a market leading financial risk analytics company.

Using data from Company Watch, Green Street’s Retail Analytics Pro will offer enriched data-driven scores that reveal the real financial health for UK and Ireland registered companies.

• Who is Company Watch and how do they rate financial health?

Company Watch is a UK-based specialist in financial risk and credit analysis, leveraging machine learning and public company data to help businesses predict distress, optimise due diligence, and monitor supplier.

Its flagship H Score® product rates each UK company’s financial health on a scale of 0–100, flagging those with scores below 25 as high-risk warning cases and helping foresee insolvencies before they occur.

Working with leading banks, insurers, large corporates, fraud and underwriting teams to monitor financial health, predict insolvency risk, and enrich portfolio management dashboards.

• What are the key risk factors to evaluate Tenant Default risk?

There are seven key risk factors that are considered when evaluating corporate risk:

1. Profitability – profit generation to meet its short-term commitments
2. Liquidity – liquid assets such as debtors and cash in relation to rate of expenditure
3. Stock and Debtors – management of working capital, with a preference for lower stock and debtor balances
4. Current Assets – current assets provide coverage over the company’s liabilities
5. Equity Base – company’s equity base in relation to its liabilities as reflection of their stable financial position
6. Current Funding– a higher reliance on current liabilities to finance assets is negative as it indicates liquidity risk or financial instability
7. Debt Dependency – assessment of a company’s dependence on debt to fund its tangible assets, with short term debt particularly viewed negatively given is reduced flexibility

The new and enriched metrics will soon be available in Retail Analytics Pro, providing clients with unique financial insights to help them optimise their portfolios

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Investors, brokers, and retailers alike have long relied on demographic data to guide decisions, from evaluating asset quality to understanding catchments. However, processing this information and making cross-market comparisons can be challenging. Green Street’s TAP Scores simplify this by combining income, population density, educational attainment, and housing affordability into a single score, from 1 to 100, that captures the demographic strength of a location. This standardised metric helps identify comparable catchments, benchmark new sites, and forecast sales performance with greater confidence.

Here’s a look at the four core demographic metrics behind the score and why they matter.

 Household Income

Median household income is a critical indicator because it directly reflects the local population’s spending power. Areas with higher incomes can typically support a stronger mix of tenants, including premium retailers, which often generate higher sales productivity. Wealthier catchments are generally more insulated from economic downturns and can offer more stable rental income and long-term asset performance. It also informs decisions about tenant mix, rent levels, and investment strategy, helping to align the asset with the needs and expectations of its local customer base.

Population Density

 Population density indicates how many people live within a defined area. High density means more potential customers nearby, supporting steady footfall for retail tenants. Higher population density signals the opportunity for stronger sales volumes and tenant demand, making it a key measure of a location’s consumer base.

Education Attainment

Areas with a higher share of graduates often have stronger job markets, particularly in professional sectors, which can drive higher income levels. A higher percentage of degree-holders often correlates with higher discretionary spending levels, and a stable employment base that is resilient to economic shocks. This creates retail destinations that can generate above average spending levels which create better investments for landlords and strong performing stores for retailers.

Affordability

The affordability ratio (calculated as median home value over median household income) captures the cost-of-living pressure in an area and gives a simple snapshot of how affordable housing is relative to local earnings, while also gauging whether local consumers have room for non-essential spending.

For most households, housing is by far the biggest single expenditure. In places where the affordability ratio is high, a larger share of household income goes toward housing costs, leaving less disposable income. While high house prices can reflect desirability, if they significantly outpace incomes, they may limit household spending power.

By combining these four powerful metrics, we get a clear picture of local demographic strength. TAP Scores offer a clear, data-driven view of local demographic quality, helping clients make smarter and faster decisions.

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The report takes into account Green Street’s proprietary Commercial Property Price Index and a series of operating metrics, including growth in tenant sales densities and occupancy cost ratios, to highlight historical performance by market and identify geographies that will outperform in the future from a rental growth standpoint.

Like-for-Like Net Rental Income Growth

“Tenant sales have grown almost 10% cumulatively since 2019, underperforming inflation in key markets, but a wide variation is observable across the globe. For prime shopping centres, like-for-like net rental income is set to grow by circa three percent per annum through to 2029.” – Edoardo Gili, Senior Research Analyst, Green Street.

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Vacancy Rate %:

From 2015 through to 2019, all five streets maintained low vacancy rates, typically below 10%. Long Acre and Carnaby Street even achieved periods of zero vacancies during some years, indicating their desirability and strong retail performance.

However, post-2019 brought increasing volatility, particularly post-pandemic when the impact rippled through the retail sector nationwide, and London’s shopping streets were no exception.

• Long Acre emerged as the most volatile, with vacancies soaring to over 18% between 2022 and 2024. However, in 2025 the vacancy rate on the street saw a steep drop back to levels not seen since 2018, suggesting a positive turnaround and return to vibrancy for the area.

• King’s Road also experienced a sharp recovery in 2025, ending the decade with one of the steepest drops in vacancy. With rental demand now back at pre-pandemic levels, the area has reaffirmed its status as a high-demand destination.

• Marylebone High Street maintained relative stability, with the lowest and most consistent vacancy levels over the period analysed, with vacancy rates never reaching over 10%, even during the pandemic years, indicating a strong and established retail offering.

• Regent Street saw a more challenging trajectory. Vacancy rates nearly doubled between 2020 and 2021, peaking in 2023. Although there’s been improvement, the street has not yet returned to its pre-pandemic strength.

• Carnaby Street also saw a similar trend, with vacancies peaking in 2021. However, the recovery of the street has been volatile in recent years with noticeable peaks and troughs.

Shifts in Retail Mix:

Beyond vacancies, another key trend over the past ten years is the transformation of the retail mix on these high streets — a reflection of shifting consumer preferences.

• Comparison retail has declined significantly on the majority of the streets, with Long Acre seeing the largest decline of nearly 20% during the last 10 years. A decline in Comparison offering is a trend echoed across GB in key shopping areas, with retailers replaced by an increased leisure and service focussed offering.

• Marylebone High Street stood out as the only location to grow its Comparison offering, with a 10% increase, counterbalancing a notable decline in its Convenience and Service categories.

• Leisure and Service have seen increases across many of these streets, with Long Acre again seeing the largest shifts, indicating a strategic shift in focus in this area over time. This shift indicates a broader reorientation toward experiential and lifestyle-driven businesses, aligning with the ever-evolving urban consumer.

London’s retail landscape is transforming, not just in response to economic cycles, but also due to a structural shift in consumer priorities. Streets that strategically adapt their tenant mix over time to reflect this will be better positioned to maintain lower vacancy rates and thrive in the next retail era.

Green Street’s Retail Analytics Pro unlocks new possibilities for investors, occupiers, and public sector stakeholders, supporting data-driven decisions that enhance retail performance and local regeneration. By combining advanced data science with extensive industry expertise, Green Street continues to set new standards for real estate insights, empowering stakeholders to make smarter, more informed decisions.

Click here to learn more about Green Street’s new
Retail Analytics Pro

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At Green Street, our granular data allows for detailed analysis at the Local Authority and High Street level, identifying exactly where HSRAs could have the most transformative effect. For investors, local planners, and landlords alike, this insight offers a powerful lens to understand risk, opportunity and potential value creation. 

For landlords and investors, this represents more than just a policy change – it’s a shift towards more proactive asset management. Rather than allowing high street properties to remain idle and lose both value and relevance, the HSRA scheme enables councils to reintroduce these spaces to the market through vibrant town centres and reduced retail voids, while unlocking previously untapped value. 

From an investment standpoint, vacant properties can quickly shift from being assets to becoming liabilities. Beyond the loss of rental income, empty units can negatively impact neighbouring properties, reduce footfall, and create a sense of decline in an area. The HSRA scheme offers a compelling solution – by reactivating long-vacant space, landlords may see not only financial returns but also reputational and community value. 

The scheme has been adopted by 11 councils to date, but as more councils gain confidence and join in, HSRAs may become a key lever in boosting town centre resilience. 

Percentage of Local Authorities within GB Average Persistent Vacancy Rate %:

Green Street is uniquely positioned to help stakeholders understand where HSRAs might have the greatest impact. Across Great Britain, an average of 9.6% of retail units qualifying for the scheme, having been persistently vacant for over a year. But a regional breakdown reveals striking variation in potential uptake. 

For example, 100% of Local Authorities in the North East have a higher-than-average proportion of qualifying units – suggesting the scheme could make a significant difference in these areas. By contrast, in Greater London, only 3% of Local Authorities exceed the 9.6% threshold, highlighting the more contained nature of persistent vacancies in the capital. 

As the retail landscape continues to evolve, initiatives like HSRAs – and the data to support their implementation – are set to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of the high street. 

Green Street’s Retail Analytics Pro unlocks new possibilities for investors, occupiers, and public sector stakeholders, supporting data-driven decisions that enhance retail performance and local regeneration. By combining advanced data science with extensive industry expertise, Green Street continues to set new standards for real estate insights, empowering stakeholders to make smarter, more informed decisions.

Click here to learn more about Green Street’s new
Retail Analytics Pro

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Openings and Closures

Green Street tracked more than 206,808 outlets operated by multiple operators across Great Britain and found that chain outlet closures have dropped to their second-lowest level in 10 years, at 12,804. This translates to an average of 35 closures per day.

Total GB Openings and Closures by year:

Daily opening figures meanwhile stayed the same averaging 25 openings per day. While this remains higher than the pandemic years, it still lags behind the pre-pandemic high of 34 per day in 2017.

Across Great Britain, the landscape remains relatively steady, with net changes ranging from -1.4% in Wales (a loss of 131 outlets) to -2.3% in the East of England (down 452 outlets). While closure rates fluctuate between regions each year, the longer-term trend over the past decade shows all regions landing within 2 percentage points of the national average for cumulative closures.

Category analysis

Convenience stores and coffee shops led the way in 2024 with more than two net openings each week, driving growth across the leisure, grocery, and value sectors. Large supermarket chains accelerated the growth of convenience stores as they continued expanding their smaller-format stores, contributing to 171 net new openings in this category. Coffee shops followed closely with 105 net additions, as they focused on expanding their out-of-town and drive-thru locations.

At the other end of the spectrum, ongoing shifts in how people live, shop, and work — alongside a handful of high-profile restructurings — drove many of 2024’s closures. With chemists, pubs and bars, banks, and car-related outlets accounting for half of all net closures.

The 2024 results show signs of recovery, with closures continuing to stabilise and a reduction in consolidation with much of the portfolios now leaner and fit for purpose. 2025 will be a challenging year, with costs rising due to new tax policies impacting margins.

Green Street’s Retail Analytics Pro unlocks new possibilities for investors, occupiers, and public sector stakeholders, supporting data-driven decisions that enhance retail performance and local regeneration. By combining advanced data science with extensive industry expertise, Green Street continues to set new standards for real estate insights, empowering stakeholders to make smarter, more informed decisions.

Click here to learn more about Green Street’s new
Retail Analytics Pro

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Luxury Mix New Bond Street 2008-2025:

Over the past 18 years the retail landscape of New Bond Street in London has undergone a dramatic transformation, solidifying its position as one of the most iconic luxury shopping destinations in the world. Back in 2008, the street featured a diverse mix of retailers, with units fairly evenly split between Premium, Luxury, and Super Luxury brands – and even a handful of Mass retailers, such as Jigsaw and Russell & Bromley.

However, over the years, the Mass retailers gradually disappeared, followed by a notable decline in Premium brands as well, this could be due to the rise in business rates across the street with the 2017 revaluation seeing an average rise of 130% on Bond Street pricing out the non-luxury occupiers. In their place, a wave of Super Luxury retailers – primarily global fashion houses – took over, with their presence more than doubling over this period. Today, Super Luxury brands dominate the street, occupying 56% of all units, firmly establishing New Bond Street as a global epicentre for ultra-high-end retail.

Comparison to Luxury High Street

To benchmark performance, the Top 30 luxury high streets across the Top 30 European markets were selected and analysed, focusing on physical vacancy rates. The physical vacancy rate analysis measures the proportion of unoccupied floorspace as a percentage of the of the total retail area, providing insights into market strength across different locations.

New Bond Street in London has one of the lowest physical vacancy rates at just 4.1%, with several units currently under development and multiple transactions taking place over the past 18 months. Comparatively, Østergade in Denmark recorded the lowest physical vacancy rate among all luxury high streets, with only 1.3% of space remaining unoccupied, reflecting the strength of the Danish luxury retail market.

On the other end of the spectrum, Calle de José Ortega y Gasset in Madrid is facing significant challenges, with nearly 20% of its retail space currently vacant. Many of these vacant properties are large-format stores, which remain difficult to lease due to their size and operational costs. In fact, Madrid’s luxury market appears to be under increasing pressure, as two of its high streets rank among the bottom five for vacancy rates. Additionally, the average size of vacant units in Madrid is the largest among the 30 high streets analysed, with many exceeding 3,500 sq ft, making them particularly hard to fill.

Floorspace Vacancy Rate

Green Street’s Retail Analytics Pro unlocks new possibilities for investors, occupiers, and public sector stakeholders, supporting data-driven decisions that enhance retail performance and local regeneration. By combining advanced data science with extensive industry expertise, Green Street continues to set new standards for real estate insights, empowering stakeholders to make smarter, more informed decisions.

The post London’s Luxury Retail Playground: The Transformation of New Bond Street appeared first on Green Street.

Value proposition by segment

Investors – can gain a comprehensive understanding of retail provision surrounding assets and assess how they serve local catchments using retail floorspace per capita statistics. Additionally, Green Street’s floorspace data can be utilisied in underwriting, to estimate the sales productivity of an asset, using sales per square foot estimates. In addition, floorspace vacancy metrics will add context to physical vacancy rates, understanding average unit size of vacant space, as well as aligning more closely with REITs who report financial vacancy rates.

Occupiers – can support their tactical location planning strategies in local markets by using Green Street’s floorspace data to target specific unit sizes for upsizing or relocation opportunities in order to maximise sales densities. Understand competition levels and assess the impact of competitors based on their space usage rather than just the number of physical units.

Public Sector – can address the long-standing issue of retail oversupply in the UK. Green Street’s floorspace data helps identify locations with the largest challenge of retail space per capita but also to identify specific categories that are oversupplied within a catchment. Benchmarking similar locations using Green Street’s Health Index will help users determine the exact amount of space reduction needed to drive retail tension and support local regeneration.

Green Street’s floorspace model was developed using data from the Valuation Office Agency (VOA), matched with Green Street’s database via the Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN). This dataset was then enriched with Green Street’s proprietary metrics, including tenant information, business type, location, and tenant category and subcategory.

Data Accuracy: Average floorspace values were calculated for each metric using a hierarchical approach to ensure the most detailed and accurate averages. Strong outliers were excluded to enhance reliability. Vacant units were also evaulated based on their previous occupancy.

Regional Considerations: Areas with low data availability, such as Scotland and specific sectors like pubs, bars, and hotels, were modelled separately.

Retailer Comparison: The model distinguishes between multiple and independent retailers, ensuring that averages are calculated within comparable groups.

Validation: The final model was validated against VOA floorspace figures to ensure alignment within acceptable parameters. This process resulted in a robust dataset covering all GB retail floorspace, utilizing over 400,000 industry-recognised data points from the VOA combined with Green Street’s expert insights—the first dataset of its kind in the market.

Green Street’s Retail Analytics Pro unlocks new possibilities for investors, occupiers, and public sector stakeholders, supporting data-driven decisions that enhance retail performance and local regeneration. By combining advanced data science with extensive industry expertise, Green Street continues to set new standards for real estate insights, empowering stakeholders to make smarter, more informed decisions.

Click here to learn more about Green Street’s new
Retail Analytics Pro

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Part of the challenge in analysing retail real estate is murky occupier metrics resulting in a lack of clarity as to how assets are actually performing. Green Street’s newly enhanced Health Index places the spotlight directly on factors that contribute to an asset’s income potential, lifting the fog to showcase retail occupier data in a different light. The Health Index is a proprietary quantitative evaluation of asset health and attractiveness, focussed on occupier fundamentals such as vacancy, demographics, competition, anchor store presence, and consumer dwell time. The objective is to capture the key benefits both retailers and centre landlords enjoy at a physical location, collectively assessing the strength, resilience, and revenue generating abilities of the asset in question.

High Health Index rankings indicate where a retailer should be able to generate the highest revenues and where a landlord should be able to maximise income potential.

It also reflects the potential resilience of an asset in the case of an economic downturn, given the strength of its underlying fundamentals. Moreover, a historic time series of health index rankings detail the performance trajectory – and asset management effectiveness – of any specific asset.  

What is the Health Index? 

The Health Index ranks approximately 3,200 retail locations across the U.K., evaluating each asset on ten factors (Exhibit 1) to produce a normalised z-score out of 100. The ranking compares each asset’s performance within its sub-asset class (shopping centres, retail parks, high streets, outlet centres). In addition, it enables comparability between property sub-asset types, with a final score out of 100 for all ~3,200 assets. Weightings were established through numerous sources, including discussions with retail owners and managers during our recently completed ~150 U.K. retail asset tours. Moreover, actual retailer sales data were used to corroborate the rankings output of the index.

How to Interpret the Health Index 

The Green Street principle “to be approximately correct, than precisely wrong” is central to interpreting the Health Index. The Health Index provides a clear assessment of the health and attractiveness of each asset both within and across sub-asset classes, but interpreting the rankings requires an understanding of the makeup of the final score – with specifics available on the Retail Pro platform. For those looking within a single category, one of the best ways to use the index is to analyse the rankings within that sub-asset category.

Assets can be generally arranged into four possible groups, based on scoring for Asset-level and Macro factors:

1. Strong Macro, Strong Asset-level – strong underlying demographic fundamentals and well managed
2. Weak Macro, Strong Asset-level – well managed asset despite having weaker underlying demographics.
3. Strong Macro, Weak Asset-level – strong underlying demographic fundamentals but sub-optimal management.
4. Weak Macro, Weak Asset-level – sub-optimal management and weak demographic fundamentals.

If an asset scores poorly due to asset-level factors, despite having strong macro factors, this could suggest significant asset-management opportunities to maximise rental income potential, generating sizeable risk-adjusted unlevered returns.

Health Index Results

The top U.K. assets within each sub-asset class are catchment-dominant destination centres and have a nationwide reach, with far larger catchment populations than their peers. Low overall as well as persistent vacancy rates suggest rental tension is likely prevalent at these assets – boding well for income growth prospects and investment liquidity. Shopping centres dominate the top 20 U.K. assets with eleven entries – characterised either as city-centre hubs or out-of-town destinations. Meanwhile, five central London high streets are within the top 20, reflecting their prime locations, unmatched foot traffic, and a concentration of flagship stores that attract international tourists and affluent locals alike. Retail parks (two of the top 20) benefit a highly functional operating model, with two-thirds of the ~1,400 U.K. retail parks having zero vacancy.

The Health Index provides ample firepower to embark on several research projects going forward, focusing on a variety of topics, some of which will be explored by Green Street’s research team in due course. These will include (i) outlining index score differences across the retail REIT portfolios under coverage in the U.K., (ii) identifying individual assets that punch above their Health Index score and what lessons can be learned from owners’ asset management initiatives, and (iii) highlighting over-retailed locations that investors would be best to avoid. In the meantime, investors can use the Health Index and the detailed information on the Retail Pro platform to deepen their analysis of assets and markets and help identify properties with the greatest potential for long-term value creation.

Learn more about Green Street’s new Retail Analytics Pro

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