// Overall footfall edged up by 0.8% last week, boosted by sunny weather, says Springboard
// High street footfall was down 0.5%, shopping centres up 2.4% and retail parks up 1.9%
// Year-on-year though, overall footfall was still down by 32.5%
Footfall across all UK retail destinations last week may have inched up slightly on the prior week, but it’s still almost one-third below the figures recorded in the same period last year.
According to retail insights firm Springboard, overall weekly footfall was up 0.8 per cent compared to the week before, with the sunny weather partly causing the weak increase.
Broken down, footfall declined by 0.5 per cent on high streets while it rose 2.4 per cent in shopping centres – which provided some relief for customers escaping the heatwave – and 1.9 per cent in retail parks.
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However, Springboard said that on a year-on-year basis, overall footfall across the UK was down 32.5 per cent in the seven days to August 15.
“The first week of the peak summer holiday period delivered spectacularly hot weather but largely lacklustre footfall performance,” Springboard insights director Diane Wehrle said.
“Customer activity across UK retail destinations rose marginally from the week before but the uplift was less than a third of the increase recorded in the previous week.
“It was clearly high streets – where footfall marginally decreased – that subdued the overall result, whilst in shopping centres and retail parks footfall rose from the week before.
“Despite the poor performance across high streets nationally, footfall in coastal and historic town centres rose marginally, undoubtedly due to the school holiday period and hot weather, whilst in regional cities and in London in particular footfall declined.”
The news comes after the New West Company was revealed that footfall in London’s West End remained 63 per cent down year-on-year, despite non-essential shops being allowed to reopen in England eight weeks ago, and that the precinct faced up to 50,000 job losses and lost sales of more than £5 billion this year.
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