Retail footfall boosted by return to the office
New figures have shown that footfall rose by 2.2% last week from the week before with increases in each of the three destination types.
The data from Springboard reveals that the number of visits to high streets, shopping centres and retail parks increased by 2.6%, 2.4% and 1.1% respectively.
Meanwhile, footfall rose in all types of town centre, with the largest rise of 7.1% seen in regional cities outside of London compared to an uplift of 3.3% in central London. In addition, Springboard’s central London ‘Back to the Office’ benchmark was in line with that of central London as a whole with a rise of 3% on the week before.
Diane Wehrle, insights director at Springboard, said: “For the fifth consecutive week footfall in UK retail destinations rose last week from the week before, albeit that the degree of uplift appears to be tapering off. Footfall rose across all three destination types, however, the increases in all three were lower than the week before which followed payday, and which is often a driver of retail spending.”
The figures also show that the gap from the 2019 footfall level widened to -21.2% last week from -17.1% in the week before. However, footfall was 149% higher than in the same week in 2021 when a Covid-19 lockdown was still in place.
