Chichester named one of the most resilient UK high streets

Cambridge, Guildford and Bath are the only ones to have fared better in the list of the UK’s most resilient retail locations, according to new research from Cushman & Wakefield, which ranks the viability and performance of 250 High Streets outside central London.

The focal point of the report is the Retail Resilience Index, which gauges metrics including retailer demand, leisure spend, floor space density, rental change as well as 'broader economic indicators' such as house prices, catchment demographics, business survival rates and tourism spend.

In a statement is said: "Most of which have been tracked over a ten-year period, providing a rounded analysis of town performance.

"On an individual town basis, Cambridge, Guildford, Bath, Chichester and Oxford are the high streets that have shown the greatest resilience over the last decade. Conversely, Hamilton, Llandudno, Newport, Greenock, Ramsgate and Kilmarnock prop up the list of 250 sites.

"The report highlights a number of towns as having performed better than expected," it added: "Cirencester in Gloucestershire, for example, ranks higher than locations of equal size due to its robust performance on variables relating to the business environment as well as the Quality of Life index."

Other key findings from the report included:

· Half of destinations in the top two tiers are located within the South East and Greater London.

· Only 19 of the 250 high street locations in the analysis recorded rental uplift over the ten-year period. In the worst-performing towns, rents have rebased by as much as 45 per cent.

· The number of passengers travelling through railway stations in tier one towns increased by 60 per cent over the ten-year period compared with 46 per cent for towns in tiers four and five.