​Bad weather and delay of full lockdown end hit UK footfall

By

Nigel TAYLOR

Published
Jun 21, 2021

It was all looking so good at the beginning of June. But more bad weather and the announcement of a further delay to the complete reopening of retail saw UK footfall again dipping for a second consecutive week.

Visits to all retail destinations declined 3.1% week-on-week in the seven days across 14-20 June, reported Springboard.

High streets bore the brunt of the decline, dipping 5.4% overall. Shopping centres and retail parks, where rain impacts trips to a lesser degree, suffered smaller footfall dip of just 1.3% and 0.1% respectively. 

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Footfall declined across all types of high streets, with London the hardest hit with a drop of 9.5% in Central London and 10.1% in Greater London.

In market towns, the drop was just 4.4% and even less at 3.2% in regional cities outside of London. Footfall in all geographies declined apart from in Wales, where it rose by 5% overall and by 8.9% in high streets.

The second consecutive week-on-week footfall decline meant that the gap from 2019 once again widened to -22.8% across all retail destinations from -18.4% in the week before and to -30.4% in high streets from -21.4% in the previous week.

Over the four days from Sunday to Wednesday, footfall across all destinations declined by an average of 3.5%. However, on Thursday and Friday when the rain hit the UK, the decline was more severe at 5.1%. Only on Saturday when the rain eased did footfall recover with a rise of 1.1%. 

Diane Wehrle, Insights Director at Springboard said: “The news announced last Monday that regulations will not be eased for another month seems to have acted as a dampener on consumer activity last week”.

She added: “For most of the UK rain dominated the last few days from Thursday onwards, which inevitably impacted high streets most heavily of the three destination types.”