Last week Ordnance Survey issued a press release about changes on the high street as a result of the recession. It was reported by the Financial Times and The Independent under gloomy headlines.
 
Among the claims made were that building society branches had declined by 28.2 per cent compared with October 2008, while betting shops had increased by 5 per cent. Both claims have since been emphatically denied by the trade bodies responsible.
 
                               
                             The Independent, 21 January 2011 

OS based its claims on its register of 27 million high street addresses, comparing the number recorded in each use in October 2008 with the number so recorded now. Dan Hughes, Sector Manager of land and property at OS, was quoted as saying: “It is no surprise there have been changes in the high street due to the turbulence of the past few years but our mapping data shows that some high street firms have been hit harder than others.
 
“Location is key, and location data is increasingly being relied upon by retailers and property companies to aid their decision making. Their key priorities are to reduce risk and lower costs, in which location-based data often plays an essential part.”
 
No doubt true, but is the data? Aidan Coles, Director-General of the Building Societies Association, was the first to respond, in a letter to the FT last Thursday. He asserts that the OS figure for building society branches is hopelessly wrong, as is the claim that 943 (28.2 per cent) had closed since October 2008.
 
That would imply there were 3,348 branches in 2008, when the actual number was 1,916, Mr Coles says. The association, which collects the figures, does not have data to the end of 2010, and he says that there may have been a small reduction, since 2008, but “categorically” not a reduction of 943.
 
Today’s FT has a further letter, from the Chief Executive of the Association of British Bookmakers. Patrick Nixon, in equally categorical terms. There has not been a 5 per cent rise of betting shops since October 2008, he says.
 
Betting shops need a licence from the regulator, the Gambling Commission, whose own data show a small fall in numbers, from 8,862 to 8,822 between 2008-09 and 2009-10. OS had quoted figures of 5,528 betting shops in October 2009 and 5,808 now, a huge discrepancy both in numbers and in trend.
 
These figures are published  in the commission’s Industry Statistics 2009-10, see Table 1, page 6.
 
The other figures quoted by the OS are those for estate agencies (down by 9.2 per cent, or 452 branches) auction houses (down by 14 per cent) amd employment agencies (a 13.4 per cent decline, or 450 branches). No response from any of their trade bodies yet.
 
On PropertyWeek.com, Claer Barrett (correct spelling)  who  wrote the FT piece, says the data from the Local Data Company show vacancy rates in the high street are set to exceed 15 per cent.
 
Martin Hickman and Andy McSmith in The Independent also quote the Local Data Compamy, saying that in September it found 13 per cent of shops vacant, compared with 12 per cent at the end of 2009 – adding obscurely “an eightpoint rise in six months”. No, I don’t know what they mean by that, either. To me it looks like a single percentage point rise in 12 months.
 
The huge discrepancies in the figures mean that somebody must be wrong. Mr Coles suggests that OS have mistakenly classified some banks as building societies. That might account for the much higher branch count from OS, but it's difficult to see how it could account for the claimed numbers of closures. The Campaign for Community Banking says only 145 bank branches closed in 2009.
 
I asked OS how it could explain the discrepancies. If it responds I’ll add an update.