Quarter of Dudley shops sitting empty
Almost a quarter of shops in Dudley town centre are sitting empty, damning figures have revealed.
A report from the Local Data Company shows a slight rise from 20 per cent last year to 20.1 per cent of shops being empty.
It ranks Dudley as the fifth worst 'medium sized centre' – 200 to 400 shops – in the country.
Stourbridge fairs better with a vacancy rate of 15.5 per cent while other large neighbouring towns such as West Bromwich has a quarter - 24.7 - of empty shops and Wolverhampton has 21.8 per cent of stores out of business.
Walsall is the worst Black Country town with a rate of 27.6 per cent ranking it sixth in the entire country for any sized retail area. While at the other end of the scale Smethwick has only 11.4 per cent of units catching cobwebs.
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 going online.
"We are seeing the out of town shopping complexes are also struggling now too, again because more and more people prefer to buy online. 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 2.3per 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 or the beginning of a long term reversal will become clear over the coming months."
