Liverpool has fewer empty shops than the national average, new data reveals

New data shows that despite cost of living struggles and the impact of Covid-19, Liverpool city centre has fewer empty stores than other areas across the country.

Livepool has seen several new retail and leisure venues open in recent months, including Albert Schloss, a third Rudy’s pizza restaurant, Popeye’s and Bershka to help the city recover after a difficult time across the UK.

New retail data, produced by Springboard for Liverpool BID company, shows that in the city centre, including Bold Street, Church Street, Whitechapel and Lord Street, 9.9% of ground floor units are vacant, 1% below the UK average and almost 3% the North West average of 12.5%.

Footfall

Footfall figures also show that 74m people have visited the BID area this year. Liverpool BID Company represents over 1,000 businesses in the city centre but excludes Liverpool ONE which measures its own footfall.

Showing that Liverpool is recovering from the impact of covid-19 lockdowns, footfall has increased by almost 40% since 2021.

Using the data for last week (beginning December 5), footfall has increased by 37.9% compared to the previous year with 74,246,282 visitors. Last week, 1,619,968 people visited Liverpool.

This weekend is expected to be exceptionally busy and Christmas fast approaches and Liverpool ONE is also predicted high footfall as they too continue to buck downward retail trends.