Quarter of West Bromwich shops are empty

A report from the Local Data Company shows the town has a vacancy rate of 24.7 per cent although that has fallen from 27.1 per cent last year when it was ranked the fourth worst in the country. It only comes behind Walsall in the Black Country which has 27.6 empty units while it fairs worse than Smethwick which has 11.4 of shops vacant.

Elsewhere Dudley's vacancy rate is 23.1 per cent, Wolverhampton comes in at 21.8 per cent and Stourbridge is at 15.5 per cent.

In Staffordshire's major towns of Cannock and Stafford more than four in five shops are open for business with the respective vacancy rates of 10.9 per cent and 17.2 per cent.

Overall in the UK the proportion of empty shops has fallen from 13.3 per cent last year to 12.3per cent.

Ninder Johal, board member of the Black Country LEP and former President of the Black Country Chamber of Commerce, said: "Obviously we want to see a lower vacancy rate.

"The High Street is going through a transformation now, and is not how it used to be, because more people are shopping online.

"We are seeing that the out of town shopping complexes are also struggling now too, again because more and more people prefer to buy online. So this isn't just about the High Street.

"But work is being done by the LEP to contribute and improve the situation, and we think it will recover."

"While things are struggling in the short term, I see things improving in the long term.

"In terms of the High Street we need to come up with something that people can do and buy there which they can't do online."

Matthew Hopkinson director at the LDC said: "Growth slackened significantly in the half year leading up to the referendum at the end of June, taking the steam out of the gentle improvement in vacancy that has improved by 2.3 per cent since 2011.

"Since the end of June we have seen the vacancy rate in leisure outlets inch upwards.

"Whether this will be just a twitch in the statistics or the beginning of a long term reversal will become clear over the coming months.

"For example, the 23 per cent net growth in restaurants since 2010 is unlikely to continue.

"Business, government and the media are all sniffing the air and scanning the horizon for any piece of news that might tell us what happens next."