Nine in ten Norwich city centre shop units are now in use. Vacancy fell from 15.2% to 9.8% in a year, though Anglia Square's demolition helped the figure.
More than nine in ten shop units in Norwich city centre are now open for business. That has not happened in at least 18 years.
The share of empty retail units fell from 15.2% in September 2025 to 9.8% in September 2026, according to the council’s latest retail survey. The figures were published by Norwich City Council on 23 October. Council officers walked the city centre in September and October to count them.
One honest caveat comes first. Part of the fall is down to Anglia Square, where empty units have been knocked down for the redevelopment rather than filled. The council says so itself. But it also says every retail area of the city centre improved, including the streets that have nothing to do with Anglia Square.
The numbers
| Measure | September 2025 | September 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Empty shop units, whole city centre | 15.2% | 9.8% |
| Empty shop floorspace available to let, whole city centre | 11.8% | 10.4% |
| Empty shop units, Primary Retail Area | 10.5% | 8.8% |
| Empty floorspace available to let, Primary Retail Area | 13.4% | 11.7% |
| Empty shop units, Secondary Retail Area | 13.5% | 9.5% |
| Empty shop floorspace, Secondary Retail Area | 9.2% | 8.6% |
The Primary Retail Area is the main shopping core: Chantry Place, Castle Quarter and Gentleman’s Walk. The Secondary Retail Area is where most of the city’s independent shops trade. The council’s release also says footfall is still rising, though it gives no figure.
How this compares with past years
The council’s Retail Monitor for 2025 gives the unit counts for every survey since 2018. Its headline vacancy rate counts units standing empty plus units being rebuilt or refurbished. On that basis the rate was:
- 10.8% in June 2018
- 10.1% in October 2019, the last survey before the pandemic
- 14.7% in October 2020, the peak
- 12.3% in October 2023, the low point of the recovery
- 13.3% in October 2024
- 15.2% in September 2025
The 2018 to 2022 rates are our own sums from the monitor’s tables. The others are printed in the report.
So 9.8% is the first reading under 10% in the series. It is also below the pre-pandemic 10.1%.
Why Anglia Square matters to the figure
Last year’s monitor explains the jump to 15.2%. It said some of the rise came from “units closing at Anglia Square to make way for redevelopment”. By September 2025, 42 of the city centre’s 906 retail units were under construction or being refurbished, against 13 a year earlier.
Once those units are demolished, they drop out of the count altogether. That pulls the vacancy rate down without anyone opening a shop. The council’s release accepts that “the redevelopment of Anglia Square has influenced the overall figures with the demolition of vacant units”.
The Primary and Secondary Retail Areas are the better test, because Anglia Square sits in neither. Both improved: the main shopping core from 10.5% to 8.8% of units empty, and the independents’ streets from 13.5% to 9.5%.
The full 2026 monitor, with the street-by-street counts, has not been published yet. The council put last year’s report online in January.
Who has opened, and who is coming
The council names recent arrivals as Swarovski, Rivolo Lounge and MenKind, and says a LEGO store is on the way. It gave no opening date for the LEGO store.
Last year’s monitor recorded the national chains that left between 2024 and 2025, including Farmfoods, the Body Shop and Moda in Pelle. It also listed arrivals such as Charles Tyrwhitt, Mowgli, Wingstop, Accessorize and ProCook.
Councillor Ian Stutely, the council’s cabinet member for planning and regulatory, called the figures “a real vote of confidence in Norwich as a shopping destination and a place for investment”.
Stefan Gurney, executive director of Norwich BID, said the mix of “independent businesses, leading brands, food and drink, culture and heritage makes Norwich a distinctive place to visit”.
What it means for you
- Fewer boarded-up fronts. Roughly one shop unit in ten is empty, against about one in seven a year ago.
- More reason to go in. If you have not been into the centre for a while, more of its shop units are trading than at any time since 2008, on the council’s own count.
- Anglia Square will change the picture again. As the new scheme is built and let, new units will come back into the count. Next year’s figure could rise even if trade stays strong.
- Getting there. Our Norwich parking guide has the council car park prices, and roadworks and travel lists what is shut this week.
The retail survey sits alongside the council’s planning work in the city centre, including the Anglia Square redevelopment.
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