EMPTY retail space at Liverpool’s St John’s and Clayton Square shopping centres has been significantly cut, their landlord has revealed.

Land Securities said 2010 was a good year for its Liverpool centres, with more than 93,000 sq ft of retail space taken by new tenants, including Aldi, PoundMart, Clas Ohlson and Mothercare.

James Larmuth, Land Securities portfolio manager, said: “We work to bring new retailers into the centres, and in terms of percentage of retail space we reduced our voids from 35% to 10% in Clayton Square and brought St John’s down from 18% to 4.3%.”

Land Securities, the UK’s biggest landlord, reported good momentum in a third-quarter update yesterday.

More than 70% of office space at a new London scheme, One New Change, is now let or in solicitors’ hands, while Trinity Leeds, a £350m retail development representing one of the largest investments in the UK since the downturn, is now 45% let, two years from completion.

The asset management arm achieved £11m of lettings, with a further £6.6m in solicitors’ hands.

This includes lettings for new or refurbished stores for the new John Lewis “at home” format in Chester and Exeter.

Land Securities chief executive Francis Salway said: “Our focus on executing the plans we laid out for the year is bearing fruit.

“We enter our final quarter confident in our ability to continue to exploit the opportunities we have created across our portfolio, as well as reacting to wider market activity.”