Retail sales at Britain’s biggest and busiest railway stations continue to significantly outperform the high street, latest figures from Network Rail show.

Station retail sales results from July to September 2013 show a 4.74% growth in like-for-like sales compared to the same period the previous year. High street sales, reported by the British Retail Consortium, grew by 1.5% over the same period.

The figures were compiled from the results of retailers operating from over 580,000 sq ft of retail space (520 units/shops) at 16 of Britain’s biggest and busiest stations owned and operated by Network Rail, benefiting from a combined annual footfall of over a billion.

Top performing stations include Kings Cross (+28.4%), followed by Edinburgh Waverley (+13.1%) and Manchester Piccadilly (+13.1%) compared to the same period last year.

Specialist foods continued to perform strongly, with sales growing by 18.5%, supermarkets up by 9.75% and pubs and bars by 6.9%. Overall, this is the second biggest growth in station retail results recorded over the past three years.

Network Rail’s retail commercial director, Hamish Kiernan, said: “These latest figures show that stations have become great trading environments for retailers, thanks to the growing numbers of people who choose to travel by rail and Network Rail’s programme of investment to create destination stations.

“The huge growth in sales at King’s Cross, where the new western concourse has given people a much wider choice of food, drink and retail brands, shows that investment in bigger, better stations can benefit passengers, businesses and the wider public. We will continue to work with retailers to help them grow their business as we look to take advantage of further exciting developments at our stations in 2014.”

All profits from Network Rail’s retail activity is re-invested in the railway, limiting the cost to tax payers and passengers.