The differing health of Highland town centres has been exposed by a new report.
Highland Council today published a series of town centre health checks, containing details of the strength and performance of 14 towns across the region.
Last week, the Press and Journal revealed that an Inverness city centre health check showed that one in eight units are now empty.
The problem is even more severe across numerous other towns – but not all of them are suffering.
According to the report, Wick has the worst vacancy rate in the north.
There are 25 vacant units in Wick town centre – approximately one in every four there.
Health check will inform decision making
The last town centre health check was carried across the same towns in 2018.
Since then, an already challenging retail sector has been hit hard by the pandemic.
That is reflected in the fact that 11 of the 14 towns have a higher vacancy rate now than they did back then.
Only Beauly, Brora and Tain have managed to buck the trend.
Portree’s rate did rise from 0.9% to 2.5%, (one empty unit to three) but such low numbers really mark it out as an outlier in this study.
Councillor Ken Gowans, who is chairman of the economy and infrastructure committee, said: “Checking the strength and vitality of our town centres is essential to enable better decision and policy making.
“By presenting detailed information and analysis of the data collected alongside a commentary on each location allows a range of users to access information relevant to them.”
Good news for Beauly
The report makes grim reading for people in Wick.
In addition to having the highest vacancy rate – rising from 15.4% in 2018 to 24.5% in 2022 – it also scored poorly in the on-site assessment.
That metric scores the town based on public feedback on things like retail and the evening economy.
The report states: “Wick can be considered one of the less healthier town centres which have been assessed as part of this study
“The town did not score that well in the surveyor’s on-site qualitative assessment.
“With an aggregated score of 29 out of 55, it was the lowest of all the town centres included in this study.”
Overall, the town recorded a 62.8% public satisfaction rating.
At the other end of the scale, Beauly saw its vacancy rate decline from 11.8% in 2018 to 9.8% in 2022.
It scored 45 out of 55 and was given a public satisfaction rating of 83.4%.
The findings at a glance
The town health check reports can be accessed in full at the council’s storymaps site.
Vacancy rates (2022, 2018)
- Alness: 18.4%, 8.1% (+10.3%)
- Beauly: 9.8%, 11.8% (-2%)
- Brora: 18.2%, 35.7% (-17.5%)
- Dingwall: 14.5%, 6.8% (+7.7%)
- Dornoch: 10.8%, 8.6% (+2.2%)
- Fort William: 12.3%, 8.5% (+3.8%)
- Golspie: 10.3%, 8.8% (+1.5%)
- Invergordon: 18.8%, 15% (+3.8%)
- Nairn: 15.3%, 13.7% (+1.6%)
- Portree: 2.5%, 0.9% (+1.6%)
- Tain: 11%, 14.9% (-3.9%)
- Thurso: 13.5%, 7.4% (+6.1%)
- Ullapool: 10%, 6.1% (+3.9%)
- Wick: 24.5%, 15.4% (+9.1%)
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