Windsor pre-Christmas retail market from the experts.
The town is abuzz with festive retail property sales and lettings. Unlike some of the regional and London agency surveying firms whose interest is primarily in the activity of the 160 retail and leisure units in the town together with Windsor Yards / King Edward Court shopping centres, a total of 312 units – Christopher Thomas’s in depth knowledge extends to clients with portfolios across the town centre, also into the less prime although very active St Leonard’s Road / Victoria Street pitches as well as the highly popular West Windsor – Dedworth and Clewer.
Class E (relaxation of retail town planning legislation in 2022, an update to the 1987 Use Class Order with little Parliamentary consultation) has resulted in a swathe of food and beverage uses entering the town centre Black Sheep, Five Guys, Franca Manca, Amorino, the return of Ben & Jerrys and so on. Due to our presence and the market demand for our services, Christopher Thomas have dominated the letting scene. Although complicit with this food entry market trend, concern has been raised by us, as to the direction the town is taking. We have an active drive towards traditional shops / shopping and hopefully a resurgence of Windsor Yards / King Edward Court following its recent change of ownership / new ownership plans will help this too.
With Windsor’s 7.5 million visitors a year (of which 1.4 million visit The Castle) with the pretty Thameside aspect and the nearby destination attractions of Legoland and Ascot Racecourse – the town has unsurprisingly faired better, moving out of and beyond the pandemic, with a retail void rate at less than half the UK average, and fairly rapid take up of vacant shops.
If you search shops for rent Windsor you will see Christopher Thomas on the first page of Google, amongst the leviathan national portals of Right Move, Zoopla, Prime Location etc. The presence links directly to our town longevity, knowledge platform and sophisticated agency / tracking systems.
In the last few weeks for example, we’ve let 33 St Leonards Road Windsor to JLE opening pre Christmas, agreed the letting of the former town centre 2,000 sq.ft. Yo Sushi premises in King Edward Court/ Windsor Yards on behalf of W.J. Daniel and Sons Ltd, a sale of the former Nat West banking hall and basement in Windsor High Street for a private client, and for a client with a retail portfolio across Windsor, their 14 High Street holding is replaced by a Hatton Garden jeweller and watch specialist, again opening for business pre-Christmas. Some exciting new market entrants. Further out of town 61-63 Dedworth Road, 4,500 sq.ft. perhaps better known locally as the Mahjacks site, is being pre-let to a multiple operator, with practical completion of building works, March 2025.
Acting on lease renewals and rent reviews we have several ongoing in the town centre and have agreed various recently in West Windsor, with uplifts across the board – unsurprisingly given the rate of inflation. Landlords need to keep up with their costs, as does the rest of the world.
With our direct pulse on the market, lots of market transactional on the market data analysis – being directly in the market day to day – we have a formal RICS Expert Witness qualification, RICS accreditation and Registered Valuer status taking us from professional work from friendly negotiation right the way to formal Arbitration / Court if required – friendly is much preferred. In most circumstances common sense and reasonableness applies.
We are always delighted to meet new clients and cherish our old. Having established the practice in 1997, this January we reach our 28th anniversary.
May we wish everyone an enjoyable, busy sleigh ride into Christmas and a most successful 2025.