Wed Jan 11, 2017 2:16 pm
More generally, I've been thinking about the performance of Cardiff City Centre as a retail destination. I think its been doing somewhat badly for a while now. Capitol is dead on its feet. Queens Arcade is pretty full but a bit of a hotch potch, and I think quite a few occupiers on short leases. Queen Street has a fair number of voids, including in fairly prime pitches. And St Davids seems to be struggling to fill a number of smaller units (at the bottom end of the lower Grand Arcade, and near M&S, for instance) and a number of the bigger units on the Grand Arcade. In particular, it doesn't seem to attract or retain the higher end retailers who may take the smaller units, and doesn't seem that good at getting the occupiers to take the mid-large units. Why is this?
a) Did the crash and long hangover mean lower overall retail spend?
b) Has the out of town market in South East Wales taken a growing share of spend not only from the secondary centres (like Ponty) but also the primary centre of Cardiff?
c) Has online commerce grown more rapidly than expected?
My gut feeling is that its (a) and (b), largely. Cardiff itself hasn't got too many out-of-town fashion stores. But over the last 10 years, two big out-of-town centres have developed in the Valleys to compete with Cardiff for that trade: Talbot Green and Cyfarthfa. A fair few people in Ponty now go up to Merthyr to do their shopping, preferring the free parking, and convenience of Cyfarthfa.
Likewise Swansea has been hit by the success of Trostre, Fforest Fach and Morfa.
Core cities in England like Manchester, Newcastle, Bristol, Leeds, etc, all face this competition but writ large - large out of town malls that we don't have in Wales. But I think the change in competition with out of town has been greater in Wales in recent years (the competition is longer-standing in England) and I think people in Wales do spend less on fashion as discussed before.
No big problem, but it is rather sad seeing quite a lot of empty units in Cardiff. It doesn't give a great impression of the city to visitors.