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Book shop numbers in London have remained broadly stable in the last year, according to store monitoring firm The Local Data Company (LDC).
In the year to the end of June, 74 new book shops opened in London while 75 shut. Nationally, the LDC only revealed a figure for closures (262) for the same period so the full picture remains unclear. The company said that there are 2,095 bookshops across England and Wales.
Figures are compiled by research teams which visit 700 shopping areas nationally and record changes of store use.
The wider research revealed that town vacancy rates have increased from just over 4% in the middle of 2008 to nearly 12% at the end of June this year. The areas heaviest hit by the recession are in the north and Midlands, with Derby, Liverpool and Leeds seeing more than 20% of retail property vacant. Central London had a vacancy rate of almost 13%.