UK retail footfall down 1.5% last week
Footfall across UK retail destinations dropped by 1.5% last week from the previous seven day period as high street footfall declined by 3.6%.
In contrast, the number of visits to retail parks and shopping centres rose marginally with respective increases of 0.9% and 0.4%.
According to the figures from retail footfall specialist Springboard, the drop in footfall in Central London was only a third of that of high streets at 1.2%, which Springboard said suggests that more visits are being made to the capital for retail and leisure purposes. However, the company’s ‘Back to the Office’ benchmark, which tracks areas in Central London dominated by offices, shows that footfall declined by 4.2% in these areas. Taking this together with a 5.1% decline in regional cities, the company said this suggests that the drift back to the office has slowed as Covid-19 cases increase.
While UK footfall was 27.9% higher than in 2020, last week’s dip meant that this narrowed slightly from +28.1% from the week before, and the gap from 2019 widened slightly to -15.3% from -14%.
Diane Wehrle, insights director at Springboard, said: “Footfall declined across UK retail destinations last week, which was not an unexpected result given that many schools have their half term holiday this week and a dip in activity in the week before the school break is a long term trend as shopping trips are deferred. Our insight shows that in five of the six years between 2014 and 2019 footfall declined from the week before in the week preceding the October school half term break.”
