New Look executive chairman Phil Wrigley today criticised “opportunistic” developers for creating a serious over supply of retail space in the UK. Speaking at the World Retail Congress in Barcelona, Wrigley said: “The principal problem is that we are over-spaced. Period. There’s going to be a correction on the way leases are structured because of this enthusiam for chucking space at the customer.” Wrigley said the problems had arisen “because property developments have not been joined up, and developers don’t communicate because they are competing with each other”. He added: “You need more stategic input from property developers – you can see how they are suffering because of the impact on their shares.” Wrigley said empty spaces in shopping centres has hit confidence as customer flow goes down. “We have been having conversations with our landlords to come up with better deals because there are malls which are failing. It’s all about reacting quickly and for landlords to be open-minded to new tenants to get space as populated as possible. Landlords need to listen more – we need to have dialogue.” Wrigley added that there will not be a significant turnaround in the UK’s economy in 2008. “There’s a doomsday senario in the UK – we are in a fiscal pickle. But if that is managed then in the first to second-half of next year we could see a recovery.”
New Look executive chairman Phil Wrigley today criticised “opportunistic” developers for creating a serious over supply of retail space in the UK.
Speaking at the World Retail Congress in Barcelona, Wrigley said: “The principal problem is that we are over-spaced. Period. There’s going to be a correction on the way leases are structured because of this enthusiam for chucking space at the customer.”
Wrigley said the problems had arisen “because property developments have not been joined up, and developers don’t communicate because they are competing with each other”.
He added: “You need more stategic input from property developers – you can see how they are suffering because of the impact on their shares.”
Wrigley said empty spaces in shopping centres has hit confidence as customer flow goes down.
“We have been having conversations with our landlords to come up with better deals because there are malls which are failing. It’s all about reacting quickly and for landlords to be open-minded to new tenants to get space as populated as possible. Landlords need to listen more – we need to have dialogue.”
Wrigley added that there will not be a significant turnaround in the UK’s economy in 2008.
“There’s a doomsday senario in the UK – we are in a fiscal pickle. But if that is managed then in the first to second-half of next year we could see a recovery.”
noella.piokivlehan@rbi.co.uk
