This is analysis of individual service lines at parks and is tabled below using the headings recommended in the RICS Code of Practice.

Average service charge components by percentage across all parks
Comment

Comment

• Management Fees as a percentage have marginally increased in Retail Park OSCAR 2008 and now on average represent just over 8.80% (8.51% in Retail Park OSCAR 2007) 

• Administration costs as a percentage of expenditure have reduced in Retail Park OSCAR 2008 to 8.70% (9.56% in Retail Park OSCAR 2007). 

• Health & Safety expenditure, which is included within Administration, is separately recorded within data on 121 parks and in the majority of cases covers assessing and auditing rather than implementation. 

 Costs are on average £0.03 per sq ft, the same as Retail Park OSCAR 2007.

The average spend was £2,842 per park (down from £3,873 in Retail park OSCAR 2007) with the lowest £1 and the greatest £13,758.  97 parks spent in excess of £1,000, this being an increase from Retail Park OSCAR 2007. 

Utilities

• Utilities costs share of the total spend has increased by 15.82% continuing to reflect the substantial increases in the energy market in recent years.

Soft Services

• Landscape/Cleaning costs generally varied from £0.01 per sq ft to £1.31 per sq ft and overall show a small percentage increase on 2007 of 4.72%. The mid range is from £0.18 per sq ft to £0.38 per sq ft.

Previous research has shown that Landscape and Cleaning costs are mainly dependant upon the physical layout of a Park and qualitative influences.

• Security - The range for those Parks with Security expenditure was £0.01 through to £1.64 per sq ft with the average £0.30 per sq ft. This average shows an increase from £0.23 per sq ft from Retail Park OSCAR 2007.   Security costs increase from Bulky Goods Parks through to Shopping Parks.

Security as a proportion of all costs has reduced over Retail Park OSCAR 2007, and now amounts to nearly 30% of total costs.  

Previous research has shown that the level of Security is most likely to be a reaction to the local environment as well as quality of service to the park.

• Promotion costs have reduced in Retail Park OSCAR 2008. 9 parks recorded expenditure under this heading, with the expenditure ranged from under £216 to in excess of £90,000. 4 parks are classified as Shopping Parks, 3 as Retail Parks and 2 as a Bulky Goods Parks.   

Promotions remain rarely included within the service charge of Retail Parks due to occupiers adopting national promotions as opposed to local promotions.

Hard Services

Repairs ranged from zero to £0.66 per sq ft and increased by 2.5% over Retail Park OSCAR 2007. 

Data from 10 parks had repairs costing in excess of £0.50 per square foot and a further 13 were £0.40 per square foot or above. Of those only 3 showed the expenditure as being exceptional.

Repair costs by park classification

Previous research has indicated costs are influenced by Age of Park, previous lack of works, lease responsibility and improvements, although there is no clear trend this year.    

Repairs on a sample of 30 sites were compared with the age of the site as follows:

Separate information on exceptional or refurbishment costs has again been poorly reported. Data from 18 parks showed exceptional costs and these ranged from £0.04 per sq ft to £0.64 per sq ft.

Income

• Income represents interest credited to service charges by some landlords and income generated in common areas of some of the parks. Both of these items have the effect of reducing service charges where they appear.

 Rate Per Car Space

Using data from 106 parks which contained the number of car spaces costs were analysed to show service charge rates per car parking unit. No overall pattern was discernable, but within the mid range some consistency is detectable. Approximately 50% of Shopping Parks near the mid range are separated by £20 per space, whilst only 50% of Retail Parks fall into this category with nearly 40% of Bulky Goods Parks.

   Rate per car space