For more information regarding the content of this publication, please contact: Marek Styczen, Project Officer - Enterprise Planning & Development The Environment Service Perth & Kinross Council Pullar House 35 Kinnoull Street PERTH PH1 5GD Tel 01738 477944 Email [email protected] Economic Journal We welcome your comments and feedback. Quarter 4 2016 (October - December 2016) The Journal is an electronic publication on the state of the local economy prepared and published by Planning & Development in Perth & Kinross Council.

Quarter 4 2016 Highlights • Kinross-shire is where most business start-ups were recorded at the end of the Quarter. • Construction was among top 3 industries for Business Start-up companies. • Perth & Kinross had 3rd lowest Claimant Count rate in Scotland. • The value of House Sales in the area between October and December 2016 was £163 Million. • The Claimant Count rate has remained in line with pre-recession levels of JSA Claimant rate for 2 years. • 7 new business openings were recorded in .

• 9 out of 10 Claimants in Perth City were resident either in or Perth City Centre. • Perth City Centre footfall numbers reached the highest level for any month in 3 years.

Labour Market Business Claimant Count rates Business Start-Up and numbers Investment Best and Worst Performing Wards Planning Applications Benefit Claimants

Perth City Centre Housing Market Business Unit Vacancy House Prices Rate Market Volumes Footfall Labour Market Perth City Centre Business Housing Market

Unemployment Claimant Count Rate in Scottish Local Authorities • Perth & Kinross area remains among the Perth & Kinross and Neighbouring Areas, December 2016 Dundee City, 3.3%

very top local authority areas with the third e 4.0 lowest rate in Scotland - the same as East a t 3.5 R

Angus, 2.0% t 3.0 Stirling, 1.6% Dunbartonshire. The rate of 1.1% recorded n in December 2016 marks about 2 years of u 2.5 C o

2.0 performance in line with pre-recession t 1.5 levels. a n 1.0 m

a i 0.5 C l • Our key neighbouring Local Authority 0.0 areas fared less favourably than Perth & % Local Authority Areas Kinross in September. Their rates ranged from 1.6% in Stirling to 3.3% in Dundee. Perth & Kinross, 1.1% Fife, 2.4%

• The comparative areas also recorded a more pronounced deterio- Claimant Count Rate Perth & Kinross 4.0 Perth City ration in performance compared to the same month in 2015. Perth e January 2014 - December 2016 & Kinross rate declined by 0.1% points year-on-year. a t Tay Cities Region R

3.5 t

n Scotland • There were 985 Claimants in Perth & Kinross in December 2016, u 3.0

C o only 30 more than the same month a year before.

t 2.2 a n 2.5

m • The Perth City Claimant Count rate of 1.7% remains above Perth &

a i 2.0 2.0 Kinross area but below Scottish average. C l

% 1.5 1.7 • From April 2016 onwards, the Claimant Count rate in Perth & Kinross area has included Universal Credit Claimant records. 1.0 1.1 • Tay Cities Region includes the areas of Perth & Kinross, Angus, 0.5 Dundee and North-East Fife. 0.0 January January January 2014 2015 2016 Source: NOMIS Labour Market Perth City Centre Business Housing Market

Best and Worst Performing Wards

• The map illustrates how the wards in Perth & Kinross performed in terms of Claimant Count rate.* The rates recorded across the area in September 2016 range from 0.6% to 2.0%, compared to a slightly wider range of 0.6% to 2.2% a year before. In other words, the gap between the best and the worst wards has lessened which is an improvement. The lowest rate of 0.6% was in .

• Perth City Centre was the ward with the highest annual increase in rate, at 0.2 percentage points. Perth City North, on the other hand, had the highest rate of improvement on last year - the rate dropped there by 0.3 percentage points.

• 87% of the Claimants in Perth City were resident in either City Centre or City North wards.

Strathtay: 0.6% Kinross-shire of Gowrie, and Earn:,Almond Carse 0.7% : 0.8% , : South: 0.9% CityPerth Centre 1.0% : and Glens, Blairgowrie North: CityPerth !.9% Centre 2.0% CityPerth Centre: Scotland: 2.2% • All wards in Perth & Kinross had rates lower than the 2.2% in Scotland as a whole.

• 50% of all Perth & Kinross Claimants were resident in Perth City.

*As of April 2016, Claimant Count and related rates for Perth & Kinross area include Universal Credit Claimants.

No change Rate increase Rate decrease in rate

Annual rate change: Dec 2016 Blairgowrie and Glens on Dec 2015 Highland Strathallan Kinross-shire 0.6% 2.2% Perth City Centre Strathearn Perth City North Strathmore Strathtay Source: NOMIS Labour Market Perth City Centre Business Housing Market

Bene t Claimants Benefit Claimant Rate bereaved 0.2 0.2 by Statistical Group, Q2 2016 • The latest bene t claimant data available at the time of publica- tion was for the second Quarter of 2016. 1.0 Perth & Kinross • disabled 1.0 There were 9,240 bene t claimants in Perth & Kinross in Q2 2016, Scotland others on income related 0.2 130 less than a year before. This is a marginal drop of 1.4% over the benefit 0.2 course of a year. The numbers are relatively static.

1.3 • The rate of Bene t Claimants was at 10% in the area, down from carer 1.7 10.4% in the previous year. It was also well below the Scottish level 0.6 of 13.4%. lone parent 0.9 • Statistical Group allocation in the table to the left is an indication 5.7 ESA and incapacity benefits 7.8 of the main reason people claim bene ts.

1.0 job seeker 1.6 % population receiving state benefits

Source: Department for Work and Pensions Labour Market Perth City Centre Business Housing Market

Business Unit Vacancy Rate Footfall • Footfall numbers in December 2016 reached the highest level for any month in 3 years. The peak of 463,200 was 5.92% above December 2015. 9 out of the 12 months in 2016 had higher footfall • Perth City Centre business vacancy rate in numbers than their counterparts in 2015. Q4 2016 fell slightly on the previous quarter, with the level of 8.64% recorded between • Footfall is expected to fall in the next Quarter, in line with season- October and December also being above last ality trends. year’s 8.15%. The rate was also above the 7 7.96% rate 2 years before. 10 Perth City Centre Footfall Business Openings vs. • Between July and September 2016, there Business Closures, Perth 463,200 2014 2015 2016 were 7 new business openings against the City Centre Visitors, backdrop of 10 closures. Q4 2016 500,000 December 450,000 Perth City Centre Business Unit Vacancy Rate 400,000 350,000 r

10% e b 300,000

9% m u e 8% N

l 250,000 a t 8.64 a l R 7% 8.15 7.96 tf y o c 6% 200,000 o F a n 5% 150,000

V a c 4% Numbers are t i 3% usually lowest n 100,000

U 2% at start of year 1% 50,000 0% - Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2014 2015 2016

Source: Perth & Kinross Council Labour Market Perth City Centre Business Housing Market

Enterprise Start-up

• There were 2.5% fewer business start-ups in Perth & Kinross Business Start-ups in Perth & Kinross

during the last month of 2016 compared with the corresponding s 120 p

period of previous year. This growth rate ranks Perth & Kinross at 16 u

t out of the 32 Scottish local authority areas. r

a 100 t S

s

• There were 54 new businesses in December 2016 in Perth & s

e 80 n

Kinross area, 7 fewer than the previous month and 9 fewer than in i s

December 2015. u B

60 f o • Within the area, Kinross-shire saw the most start-ups; Almond and Earn, Perth City North and Perth City South saw the least. N o 40

• The make up of start-ups is Limited Companies 48.1%, Sole 20 Traders 31.5%, Other For Pro t Start-ups (mainly Partnerships) 3.7% 0 l l and Not For Pro t 16.7%. l t t t r r r r r r y v y v y v g g g n n n n n n u u u a a a p p p e c e c a e c a a o o o u u a u a a e b e b e b u u J u J J J J J J J J O c O c O c A A A S e p S e p S e p F F F D D D A A A N N N M M M M M M • The top 3 industries account for 61.1% of the starts. 2014 2015 2016 • Perth & Kinross accounted for 2.9% of all start-ups across the Scotland.

• In December 2016 across all the Scottish local authority areas the Top 3 Start up Industries median level of starts was 35. The average, minimum and maxi- mum number of starts for a Scottish council area was 57, 6 and 247 respectively. Real estate, professional services & support activities

Note: A ‘Start-up’ reflects the opening of a first current account from a small business banking Recreational, personal & community service product range. They represent businesses new to banking or those previously operated through a Construction personal account. The data exclude businesses operating through personal accounts.

Source: BankSearch / Companies House Labour Market Perth City Centre Business Housing Market

Investment Cost of Works in Perth & Kinross £

• The monetary values reported in this section are ,

s 140 an indication of investment, both under way in k r the reporting period, and planned within the o 120 w

36.5 Million following 3 years. f 100 o

Cost in Pound Sterling of t

s 80

Building Works requiring o

• The value of building works requiring a Building c building warrant in Q4 2016 60 Warrant in quarter 4 of 2016 was £36.5 million. £36.5M This was 50% higher than the gure in the same 40 £22.5M £24.4M quarter a year before at £24.4 million. Q4 in 2016 20 was also 62% higher than the same quarter in 0 2014.

• There were 444 applications for a Building Warrant and amendment to a Building Warrant *Due to legislation changes in October 2015, Perth & Kinross Council registered an unprecedented volume of applications in the months preceding the changes, which reflected in the value of works reported for Q3 2015 (and possibly Q2 2015 to a between October and December 2016. lesser extent). For the same reason, it is impractical to treat these values as directly comparable with other reported figures.

Planning Applications in Perth & Kinross Planning Applications Registered Applications Determined Applications

• The number of new Planning Applications submitted to Perth & Kinross 600 Council remained static at 430 in the fourth quarter of 2016; this was 5.1% above the 468 in the same quarter a year earlier. 400 468 409 430 • The number of determined applications at 363 was at a signi cantly lower 363 level than the previous year’s gure of 468. 200

0 Q4 2015 Q1 2016 Q2 2016 Q3 2016 Q4 2016

Source: Perth & Kinross Council Labour Market Perth City Centre Business Housing Market

House Prices Average (Mean) Residential Property Prices £200,000

• There was a marginal drop in average house prices in Q4 2016 in Perth & Kinross, with the mean £150,000 residential property price of £190,496. This gure was £22k above the Scottish average. £100,000 Perth & Kinross • Average Perth & Kinross house prices were 8th Scotland highest among local authority areas in Scotland. £50,000

£0 £190,496 £168,495 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 Average House Price Average House Price (All Types) (All Types) Perth & Kinross Scotland £163 Million £4,733 Million value of residential value of residential property sales in Perth property sales in Housing Market in Perth & Kinross & Kinross, Q4 2016 Scotland, Q4 2016 by Volume of Sales 1000 d l 842 856 o Market Volumes S

800 725 s e ti r 600 • 856 houses sold in Perth & Kinross area between October and Decem- e

p ber 2016, compared to 842 in the same quarter a year earlier and 725 o r

P 400 two years before.

f o

. 200 • Houses sold in Perth & Kinross accounted for 3% of the housing stock N o sales in Scotland. For comparison, the value of house sales in Perth & 0 Kinross constitutes 3.4% of the total value of residential property sales Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 in Scotlad. 2014 2015 2016 Source: Registers of Scotland