Record gap between highest and lowest UK shop rents

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"People used to speak about the UK's north-south divide, but it's more accurate to say it's central London versus the rest of the UK, and that's really accelerated in the last two years," he told Reuters.

Dudley, a town with a population of over 300,000 in the West Midlands, is home to one such struggling high street. Almost 30 percent of its stores are vacant, making it the emptiest medium-sized centre in the UK, figures from research company Local Data Company show.

Retailers could rent the equivalent of 28 stores in Dudley for one on Bond Street, while the figure was three in 1987, Colliers data show.

While the town centre used to house mid-market retailers such as Debenhams and department store Beatties, it is now populated by cafes, payday loan shops and boarded-up outlets left behind by the likes of fast food chain McDonalds, which shut in 2006.

Dudley North's Member of Parliament, Ian Austin, is campaigning for the town centre to win funding from the government, which has earmarked 1 million pounds to help 12 towns revive their high streets.

It is a drop in the ocean compared with what landlords are spending in central London. The Duke of Westminister's property company Grosvenor Group has spent 10 million pounds revamping public areas on its London estate so chauffer-driven cars can park more easily.

The Crown Estate, which manages the monarch's property holdings, is spending 1 billion pounds in a makeover of Regent Street in an attempt to lure large international retailers seeking flagship stores.

The worst-hit high streets could be bulldozed to make way for other uses such as new homes, while others would only survive by changing their mix of tenants, said Darren Yates, a partner at property agent Knight Frank.

Those that survive would contain more convenience stores and community sites, including pop-up shops, internet and charity shops, stores for local artists and furniture makers, doctors, dentists, Yates said.