There is a new air of realism about the BCSC conference this year

In the last few years the start of the BCSC conference has been marked with stunts like the conference chairman abseiling in from the ceiling, or precocious local kids singing or dancing.

On a grey morning in Manchester today there was none of that razzmatazz - instead it was more like the headmaster taking ths stage for assembly as John Lewis’s rather sober development director Jeremy Collins got up to kick off proceedings.

It was a fitting start as the first couple of sessions of the event were utterly depressing for anyone in retail property. First Michael Portillo took the stage and told us the the economic outlook for 2010 is far worse than anyone is predicting and started talking about the potential for a run on the pound. Then former Selfridges boss Peter Williams stood up and said that retailers have too much space and the inexorable shift towards the web means far fewer shops will be needed in the years to come.

It was wrist-slittingly frank stuff for the property industry and very much at odds with the more positive noises we’ve been hearing from some of the leading lights of the property industry lately, notably Land Securities’ Francis Salway. But around the exhibition yesterday afternoon and in the bars last night, the reality was that no-one buys the argument that some big corner is about to be turned and that while some retailers are taking space they are not sufficient to absorb the huge levels of vacant space.

The problem is that while Williams identified the scale of the problem, and particularly the issues which are facing secondary retail locations as independent retail suffers, no one has identified genuine scaleable solutions which will give retail locations which are suffering today a sustainable future.

I caught up with Collins last night and his view is that a mix of uses, including more leisure, is going to be vital in the shopping centres of the future, and he concedes that even his own business will have to make compromises because the amazing deals it has received in the past will no longer be available in the future.

It’s a sign that - bold statements from property companies to appease their shareholders not withstanding - there is a new realism in the market. What no-one knows though is how fundamentally the relationship between retailers and the property industry is going to change.

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