Things are heading in the right direction in Inverness city centre – and it’s good news if you’re looking for a bite to eat.
We got out on foot for the second time to carry out a full survey of more than 250 premises in 11 city centre streets and the Eastgate Shopping Centre.
There are still many challenges facing the city centre.
But the data appears to show that things are slowly improving – and that Inverness is stacking up very well against other Scottish cities.
Our latest census shows:
- An overall increase in the number of occupied units across the city centre
- Only one tracked street saw a drop in its vacancy rate in May compared to December 2023
- Shopping remains the most popular category of business across Inverness high streets – but food and drink is closing the gap
How things look today in Inverness
The high street tracker maps out 11 streets in Inverness – High Street, Academy Street, Baron Taylor’s Street, Bridge Street, Church Street, Drummond Street, Eastgate, Inglis Street, Queensgate, Rose Street and Union Street.
We also include data for the 74 spaces in the Eastgate Shopping Centre.
Our latest census has shown that the vacancy rate only increased in Drummond Street between December 2023 and now.
Every other street either saw the vacancy rate decrease or stay the same.
Across the city centre streets, 8.5% of the units are currently vacant, compared to 10.7% five months ago.
The figures aren’t quite so impressive for the Eastgate Shopping Centre.
Out of its 74 units, there are 16 vacant, a total of 21.6%.
But that’s still a slight improvement from December, when 17 units were empty.
How is Inverness doing compared to other Scottish cities?
The short answer is very well indeed.
DC Thomson is also tracking city centre data for Aberdeen, Dundee and Perth.
Across the high streets in those three cities, around one in five units are lying empty.
In Inverness, it’s less than one in 10.
That news will come as a surprise to many across the Highland capital, given the kicking the city centre often takes online.
And in the not too distant past, things looked a lot more grim.
The 8.5% average vacancy rate looks especially impressive when compared to Aberdeen’s 20%.
The figure in Dundee is 17.7% and in Perth it’s 18.9%.
And across Scotland it’s a similar picture.
Data published last summer by the Scottish Retail Consortium showed that 15.9% of shops were lying empty – and that data includes retail parks, which tend to fare much better.
The changing face of Inverness city centre
The High Street itself has seen the most striking change in the latest census.
We’ve become accustomed to seeing shutters and To Let signs occupying key sites for a while now.
But right now, the street is 96.7% occupied. That’s only one empty unit out of 30.
It’s a marked improvement from last December when five units were vacant.
Since then:
- Krispy Kreme has opened in the former RBS building
- Aye Eat, a new Scottish-themed restaurant, has opened in the unit which formerly housed Bright House and Dixons
- The Birch Cafe opened where Los Burrito left off in September 2023
- Highland Gifts replaced Clarks, which also closed in September 2023
The growing number of places serving food and drink is a trend across the city centre.
We’ve also recently seen the opening of Playback – a bar offering “competitive socialising” and activities like axe-throwing – in Academy Street.
It has filled the space left behind by Ponden Home Interiors, which had been empty since 2020.
There are now 65 places offering food and drink across the tracked streets, making up 30.7% of the total.
Shopping is still the most popular type of business across the high streets – making up 38.91% – but the gap is narrowing.
Can you help us keep our tracker up to date?
All of the data included within our high street tracker is collected manually by the data team and the reporter team in Inverness, and includes units opening and closing we’ve written articles on, as well as things we’ve noticed while out on foot in the area. Our last open dates may be estimates based on the best information we could find.
But we know we might not always spot everything, or get every closure date right.
We appreciate all the support we’ve received for our trackers so far, and would love if you would like to help us keep it up to date.
If there’s anything you spot opening or closing you’d like us to know about, or if you have more accurate information on closing dates of units or what the last business to occupy a unit was, you can let us know using the form below.
Conversation