UK footfall stays weak, Central London still down more than half

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Sep 22, 2020

Visitor traffic to retail destinations rose in the week to September 19, increasing 2.4% compared to the week before. But that wasn't the good news that it might have seemed as the previous week had seen a footfall drop of 6.3%, so the latest period was simply making up some of those losses. 

And the gap from last year widened with a year-on-year decline of 28.7% versus 27.5% in the week before. Retail parks continued to far outperform high streets and shopping centres, with footfall 12.5% lower than last year compared with annual declines in high streets and shopping centres of 34.3% and 32.6% respectively. 

That's according to specialist tracking company Springboard, which also said that while high streets are still heavily down compared to last year, they saw a 5.2% increase week-on-week. That compared with shopping centres where footfall declined 0.8% and retail parks where it was down 0.3% compared to the week before.

But as mentioned, the week-on-week figures shouldn't be taken as some sign of shopper confidence. For instance, despite an improved performance for Central London last week (up 6% compared to the previous week), footfall remains 56.1% lower than last year, versus 45.3% lower in regional cities and 22.6% lower in market towns.