Footfall rises for seventh consecutive week

Footfall across UK retail destinations rose for the seventh time in eight consecutive weeks last week, up 7% according to the latest Springboard data.

Footfall rose on five of the seven days last week, increasing by 10% on each day between Thursday and Saturday with a peak of 14.1% on Tuesday, which Springboard estimated was due to parents of school age children having some additional time to make trips following the return to school on Monday

There were also increases in activity in each of the three key destination types, with shopping centres showing the greatest rise than in high streets or retail parks with nearly “three times as large” as the average over the previous six weeks.

Footfall rose in all types of high street apart from in coastal towns where it dropped by 7.9%, in Central London footfall rose by 14.3%, however, in other regional cities outside of the capital the uplift was “more modest” at just 2.3%.

Whilst shoppers continued to stay local, footfall in market towns rose by 6.2% bringing the annual decline to 53.1% versus a 67.9% decline in regional cities. However, despite the double digit rise in footfall in Central London last week, the impact of the pandemic on the capital is “evident” as footfall remained at a 78.2% decline.

Diane Wehrle, insights director at Springboard, said: “Footfall across UK retail destinations rose once again last week – the seventh rise in eight consecutive weeks – whilst in the same week last year footfall not only declined.

As consumers were receiving more and more messages concerning the spread of the virus, the drop was greater than in the previous eight weeks. With non-essential stores still closed until 12th April, the steady increase in visits to high streets and shopping centres delivers further evidence of the degree of pent up demand amongst consumers to return to stores.”