Local Data Company - Retail Type, Vacancy and Address Data

The Local Data Company (LDC) Retail Unit data offers insights into the locations and characteristics of retail activity and vacancy across Great Britain. Held by GeoDS and supplied by the Local Data Company (LDC), the datasets contain details of retail locations in Great Britain, which have been surveyed by LDC.

Retail Type and Vacancy data tables include:

• Shop name • Shop use • Classification • Category • Sub Category (inc. Retail Type/Vacancy)

Retail Address data table includes:

• Unit • Building • Street No • Street • Town • Postcode • Latitude • Longitude

If you are interested in local authority district level aggregated data, please see the Safeguarded record listed below.

Content

The snapshots are one for the years from 2009 to 2016, two for the years 2018 and 2019, one for the years from 2020 until the current year. For detailed description of the columns contained within the data, see the Variable Dictionary; and for an overview of the characteristics of the data, see the Data Summary. These files can be downloaded from the bottom of this page.

Quality, Representation and Bias

Depending on year, before 2019, about 70% of the locations have building level accuracy with the rest having postcode level accuracy. The representation varies among the datasets with the most recent years being the most complete, which means that additional caution should be taken with temporal analysis.

Secure

Data and Resources

This dataset is categorised as Secure and therefore access to the underlying data is only available within one of our Trusted Research Environments. You can view metadata here to determine whether the data will be of use to you. You can apply for access to it by submitting an initial proposal form here.

Please log in first if you wish to request data.

 

Additional Info

Field Value
Source Local Data Company
Author Local Data Company; GeoDS
Maintainer Dr Maurizio Gibin
Last Updated May 8, 2025, 15:21 (UTC)
Created November 28, 2024, 14:08 (UTC)
Attribution The data for this research have been provided by the Geographic Data Service (geods.ac.uk), a Smart Data Research UK Investment: ES/Z504464/1.
Columns 26
Frequency Annually
Granularity Location; Date
Rows Around 350.000-900.000 (Depending on year)
Spatial Coverage United Kingdom
Temporal Coverage July 2009 to August 2024