Two locations in North Yorkshire have been revealed as some of the UK’s top shopping destinations.

York city centre was listed in 19th place in the best 25 retail areas according to Newmark Retails Vitality Rankings 2024.

However, the city has dropped down one place from 18th compared to the 2022 rankings.

Yet this is a huge climb since being listed in 47th place in 2019 - an improvement of 28 rankings in total.

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Elsewhere, Harrogate featured in 17th position in the 2024 data, sitting slightly above York but this is a drop of two rankings since 2022.

This is still a bit of a jump from 22nd place in 2019 – a total of five rankings.

Both York and Harrogate beat other shopping hotspots such as Bluewater and Bath city centre.

Taking the top spot was Cambridge city centre which climbed up from 36th place in 2022.

Why York and Harrogate were crowned 2 of UK’s best shopping destinations

This year, the data highlighted how well areas were doing in terms of “traditional drivers”, such as market size, quality of retail offer and vacancy rate.

Newmark Retail explained: “During the pandemic’s lockdowns, these factors included very specific types of occupier that were able to trade (such as grocers, pharmacies and takeaways), vaccination rates, residents’ age, and Google’s mobility data that was monitoring consumer movement in residential, commercial and park areas.”

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It added: “There are some residual impacts that affect retail centres, with ecommerce levels higher than in 2019, and working from home more common amongst white collar workers.

“The former especially means that there is now an over-supply of retail space across the UK, leading to increased vacancy rates and unproductive space.

“We have therefore used the amount of floorspace under redevelopment as an additional positive factor, to show locations that are taking proactive steps to improve or reduce the building stock.”