Reading’s High Street has the right ingredients for Success

17th July 2025

An interesting new report from Centre for Cities reveals a striking divide in the state of the UK’s high streets and paints a picture of what makes Reading a successful city centre. The report debunks the myth that the high street is suffering everywhere and while it makes the point that it has certainly come under pressure from the rise of out-of-town retail, and more recently online shopping, in some centres, including Reading, it is still performing well.

The report, Checking out: The varying performance of high streets across the country, draws on millions of anonymised card transactions and new estimates of local retail vacancy rates in the UK’s 63 largest cities and towns to understand why some high streets thrive and others don’t.

City-centre shop vacancy rates are over twice as high in some areas as they are in others with local spending power a huge factor in boasting a vibrant city centre. The report compares Reading with Hull, both of which bring in roughly 400,000 local shoppers, but in Reading incomes are 26 per cent higher and vacancy rates 4 percentage points lower. Overall, the report ranks Reading as having one of the 15 lowest retail vacancy rates in the country.

Factors cited in the report which influence Reading’s strong high street include:

• The strength of the local economy - incomes are higher in places like Reading because it has a strongly-performing export economy. Companies in the export base sell to national and international markets, bringing money into the local economy and into people’s pockets which they in turn spend on the high street. In Reading’s case London provides a further source of prosperity, with those who live in Reading but work in London spending a portion of that wage in their ‘home’ city centre too.
• The size of the catchment area - Reading’s catchment is larger than its own population, acting as a magnet for shoppers in the region.
• The affluence of that catchment area – Reading has the 4th highest average wages in the UK - richer catchments, such as Reading, have fewer empty shops.
• High streets pivoting from retail towards food, swapping redundant shops for cafés and restaurants - people from higher income areas spend a higher proportion of their city-centre spend on food and drink. Anyone who has followed the fortunes of Reading town centre in recent years can’t help but notice how many new eateries continue to open locally.
• Keeping shopping spend locally - Reading also defends its own turf successfully with only 4% leakage of spend to London and a further 1% loss to other out of town shopping centres.
• Attracting visitors - the report makes the point that city centres that are successful in capturing their own residents also then go on to attract visitors. According to the report, Reading is in the top 10 for attracting both its own residents and visitors.
• Reading’s proximity to London also acts as a further source of prosperity – the average transaction size of those who work in the capital but live elsewhere is 1.3 times that of other residents. So while London pulls people in from surrounding areas (acting as a rival centre of consumption), it also boosts spending power around such city centres.

The report also makes the point that higher internet spend doesn’t necessarily mean the city centre high streets struggle, citing no evidence for a relationship between how much people in cities spend on online retail against city centre high street vacancies. “It is not the case that places that do more shopping online have more poorly performing city centre high streets. This would suggest that in places with higher incomes, whilst the internet has diverted retail spending, higher incomes mean that there is still money to spend in bricks and mortar outlets.”

NIgel Horton Baker, Chief Executive of REDA, said:"Reading’s large catchment area (1.7m people) and significant visitor spending (7 million UK and international visitors), nett in-commuting and annual retail sales (£250 million), are key factors that position Reading favourably for retail and service sector growth.

"Through our BID service and work with public and voluntary sector partners, we will continue to make every effort to further enhance the town centre experience and offer for shoppers, visitors, workers, businesses and residents."