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25 Jun 2025

The E-Bike Positive campaign has seen major success in the first half of 2025, with its message reaching nearly 8 million people across the UK through high-profile media coverage and growing...

20 Jun 2025

The House of Commons Business and Trade Committee has asked the ACT, and its parent company Bira, to help them reach out to small business retailers across the country, for their quick input on...

20 Jun 2025

Activate Cycle Academy has reopened its Cytech training facility in Darlington, offering a full range of courses from Home Mechanic up to Cytech Technical Three.
 

18 Jun 2025

The Association of Cycle Traders believes the time has come for greater accountability throughout our supply chain, writes ACT Director Jonathan Harrison in an article published for BikeBiz.

16 Jun 2025

The ACT has welcomed the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Cycling and Walking's report "Unregulated and Unsafe: The Threat of Illegal E-Bikes", which calls for urgent Government action to...

11 Jun 2025

A new academic study has found that overzealous pro-cycling campaigners on social media may be inadvertently damaging the case for better cycling infrastructure across the UK.

11 Jun 2025

Bira has welcomed the Welsh Government's consultation on business rate reforms for retail shops, whilst calling for significant improvements to ensure the proposals truly support high street...

10 Jun 2025

Bike thefts across England and Wales have continued their steady decline, according to new data released by cycle insurance specialist Bikmo.

9 Jun 2025

Retailers on Britain's high streets are being encouraged to put themselves forward for the first-ever Love Your High Street Awards, designed to celebrate the small businesses that bring...

9 Jun 2025

 To coincide with Bike Week (9-15 June) – the UK’s annual celebration of cycling – new research has revealed a clear shift amongst Gen Z and Millennials in their approach...

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New data reveals the most and least expensive retail rental areas in the UK

Posted on in Business News , Cycles News

New data from insolvency specialists Real Business Rescue, which analysed current commercial retail listings to find the most and least expensive areas in the UK for business owners to open stores, has found that London, unsurprisingly, tops the UK’s most expensive area for retail rents. The capital was the most expensive with the average rents hitting £49.64.

Oxford Street Xmas

However, there is a big disparity in rents across London ranging from £86.18 in Kensington and Chelsea to £23.16 in Barking and Dagenham.

Across the UK, Oxford was the second most expensive area, with average rents of £49.51.
Although recent reports have said that Oxford is among some of the UK’s worst for empty retail units since the pandemic, retail rent could still be at a premium due to council investment in the area, a budding population of younger professionals thanks to planned new housing developments, and tourism generating £780m of income a year for local businesses.

The third highest average price per square foot per year is another tourist haven, York, at £47.75.
In terms of the most affordable retail rental price, Blackpool is the cheapest at an average of £12.45 per square foot per year.

Despite the low rents, Blackpool saw a record boom in visitors in 2021 following the pandemic with more than 12 million people visiting the town centre compared to about 9 million in 2019.

Shaun Barton, national online business operations director at Real Business Rescue said: “Rental prices are just one of the many rising costs affecting businesses across the nation as they battle through one of the toughest periods, they’ve ever faced due to the ‘cost of doing business crisis’ and rising inflation.

“Not only do these prices lead to vacant retail spaces, which can have damaging effects on high streets up and down the country, but it’s another pressure point for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) everywhere.”

Barton said the lifting of the moratorium on landlord debt collection has “increased significantly” the pressure on retailers.

“With the fallout from the pandemic, and now a ‘cost of doing business crisis’, it is clear that a significant number of retailers across the country are facing a battle to remain financially solvent and viable,” he said.

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