Retail footfall boosted by warmer weather
New figures have revealed that UK retail footfall rose by 2.3% last week from the previous seven days as the warmer weather encouraged people to visit retail locations.
According to the data from Springboard, high streets experienced an increase of 4.2%, although the uplift was much smaller in shopping centres and retail parks where there was respective growth of 0.5% and 0.1%.
Coastal towns performed particularly well with a rise of 8.5%. Meanwhile footfall in central London and city centres outside of the capital grew by 4.9% and 4.7% respectively.
From Thursday onwards when the weather became warm and sunny, footfall rose from the week before by 8.1% across all retail destinations
Diane Wehrle, insights director at Springboard, said: “The favourable weather from Thursday onwards had a positive impact on footfall across UK retail destinations last week; footfall rose from the week before in all three destination types, but particularly in high streets which is typically the destination of choice for shoppers when the weather is warm and dry.”
Despite the strong overall performance in the week, the gap from the 2019 level widened marginally to -15.2% across all retail destinations from -13.1% in the week before.
