Tuesday, November 5, 2024

We counted the number of empty shops in Huddersfield town centre

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At least 61 of Huddersfield’s shops are vacant – topping last year’s total of 52 – but Kirklees Council says that spending and footfall are actually on the rise.

On a sunny Thursday morning, this reporter took to the streets of Huddersfield to see just how many retail units were vacant. After exploring the town, we counted 61 retail units that were clearly vacant, or were being advertised as for sale or to let for commercial use.




Making up just over a sixth of the total are the vacancies at New Street, with 11 empty units including the old Wilko, standing empty. This total is set to increase even further as retailer Freddie’s was having a closing down sale.

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Elsewhere, Byram and King Streets saw five vacancies apiece and four empty shops could be spotted at John William Street. Some of the town’s longer-standing vacancies include the former Casino Red and Cleopatra’s building at Northumberland Street and Turtle Bay on King Street.

Our figures from previous years show that this is an increase on the past couple of years, with 53 empty in 2023 and 52 in 2022.

The latest numbers and those for last year could not take the Piazza area into account as the area is sectioned off to make way for the multi-million-pound Cultural Heart project. However, the Shambles area was accessible, with three commercial units empty, one of them being the former WHSmiths.

As far as Huddersfield’s shopping centres are concerned, the Kingsgate Centre has five spaces, one of which being the former House of Fraser which is currently being transformed into Kingsgate Leisure. This scheme made the headlines recently as it was revealed that the original opening date of September 2024 had been pushed back to Easter 2025.

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