Walking around Nugent Shopping Park on a drizzly April afternoon, there's a High Street flavour to the shops at British Land's Orpington retail hub as brands like Waterstones, Marks & Spencer and Superdrug flank the site's busy car park.

But that is the point, says the REIT's head of retail park asset management, Matthew Reed, who explains its parks have become popular destinations for traditional town centre traders since COVID due to their "affordability, adaptability and accessibility".

"If you go back to the mid 2000s, you had quite a limited type of retailer that would go onto a retail park," he says. "Now, we are seeing that depth accelerate post-COVID, with many more names coming to the fore.

"What we saw happen through COVID was businesses that were really [just] surviving as we approached COVID, carrying a lot of debt, and their format wasn't quite right... They started to fail and disappear, and that created more surplus space and gave an ability to retailers - as rents rebased - to try a new format of a low entry rent.

"And what we are now seeing is that it's working; it's working really well and that breadth of occupier is pushing up occupancy and pushing down the vacancy rate."

Nugent Shopping Park is a prime example of the increased popularity of retail parks with traditional shopping centre retailers in recent years. Reed says a series of administrations and CVAs of more traditional occupiers, such as Mothercare and Debenhams, paved the way for the REIT to test out other brands at the circa 400,000-square-foot retail park.

Along with Next and M&S, the park now houses a WHSmith, Pret a Manager and Boots, while Hotel Chocolat's 5,561-square-foot letting last November was one of the final pieces of British Land's 'hybrid park' puzzle, characterised by a rich tenant mix of discounters and omni-channel retailers.

Bosses at the REIT, which is the largest retail park landlord in the country, say they had multiple tenants looking at the Hotel Chocolat unit, noting that other upmarket food and fashion retailers are also looking to venture into these spaces. It is reflective of a wider trend, which is seeing 'bulky' goods traders, traditionally housed at retail parks, being replaced.

Other brands to enter Nugent Shopping Park in recent years include JD Sports, while British Land has worked to boost the amenity at the park with the additions of burger chain Five Guys and Hitio Gym to increase shoppers' dwell time.

Reed says one of the reasons retailers are attracted to retail parks is due to their "incredibly low occupancy costs", with out-of-town units proving cheaper to run than High Street pitches.

The 'large box formats' give retailers more space to play with, allowing them to diversify their services by running Click & Collect services alongside traditional in-store shopping. Larger floor spaces also allow brands to stock larger and more varied stock.

"To reduce their costs, by pushing Click & Collect and returns to a physical stores, and driving that whole basket spend, is a much more efficient model to run," says Reed, who highlights Next as one of the best omni-channel operators in the business.

"It is very expensive for any retailers to send goods to your house, or go and pick them up from your house. But if they can push you to a store, it is one truck from their warehouse to the store, it is already going there to stock it, so it is much easier and more cost effective to takes things in, and we have seen consumers really engage with that."

Existing occupiers are also expanding at Nugent Shopping park. One example is M&S, which is upgrading its space to a little under 60,000 square feet by knocking two units together at the north end of the park.

Planning, granted in the last few weeks, will see the retailer's food section grow to around 15,000 square feet, while it is adding a mezzanine floor. But this is a rare example of development at a park.

Reed says obtaining planning for new retail parks is tricky, with local authorities allocating little to no space for this use. This, he says, is an effort by local authorities to protect their High Streets, and has put a "natural cap" on new supply. He adds that circa less than 5% of retail park accommodation has been built in the last 10 years.

"There was a glut of development in the late 1980s and through the 1990s, and planning authorities became increasingly concerned about protecting high streets and town centres. That meant that planning consents became increasingly hard, sometimes impossible to get.

"From a development perspective, it is incredibly hard to go out and get consent for a new 100,000-square-foot or 200,000-square-foot retail scheme. So the supply we have today is the supply you are going to more or less have forever more; it might grow 5% every ten years."

Although planning constraints make it difficult for developers to build new parks, Reed says this is not all bad news for the REIT, which owns around 8% of the UK's total 1.5 billion square feet of retail park accommodation. It calls itself the "largest owner and operator of retail parks" in the UK, with 38 locations.

"It's fantastic if you're a retail park owner. The supply isn't expanding, so you already have tension on the space. We are not worried about millions of square feet of space coming in the next three to five years. If you're a retailer, and you want to be in a retail park, you're going to have to be in one of the exiting parks today."

While a lack of accommodation is keeping retail park rents at good levels, Reeds says that longer leases, in the range of 10 to 20 years, also make them an attractive prospect for investors. He adds limited capex and running cost compared to shopping centres also increase their appeal.

With most valued at less than £100 million, they also sit in an investment sweet spot. "The majority of assets are often between £25 million and £50 million," says Reed. "Those are really tradeable lot sizes and accessible, and that again makes it attractive as an investment proposition because you are not worried about buying into an asset you then cannot sell at a later date."

He also highlights that investors are able to buy retails parks for less than what they would cost to build. The REIT continues to look to make acquisitions of parks, but rules out the South East and London for now due to pricing that has become "too hot". But it is looking elsewhere.

"We have been really disciplined over the last few years, and if you look at the spikes in retail park acquisition from 2020, we've normally been the first mover and then the trend kicks on.

"Pricing hasn't got too keen at the moment, we are seeing a lot of the funds now are really quite active and have war chests building up. They tend to be really focused on the South East, they feel much safer in those territories."

He adds: "Because we've got the best skillset from an asset management perspective, we are much more comfortable looking out into the regions. We run a lot of assets throughout the UK, so we are a bit more agnostic about taking in towns where other investors feel there is risk."

Looking ahead to the future, Reed says that the healthcare sector is looking closely at retail parks, with the REIT exchanging a deal with diagnostics group InHealth for a unit its Crown Point North retail park in Denton, South Manchester. Dentistry group MyDentist is also looking at retail parks, with its patients able to fit their appointment around the weekly shop.

Reed says British Land also wants to install more electric vehicle charging points at its retail parks, using them to drive revenue from car parking spaces that didn't exist five years ago through rents. British Land is looking to boost sustainability at all it retail parks.

"At our half-year, about 48% of our retail park units were EPC A or B rated, and we have plans to get the entire portfolio to A or B by 2030."