Business

Footfall improves across UK retail destinations

'Non' essential retailers were allowed to reopen from lockdown on June 15
PA
Joanna Hodgson
24 August 2020

Footfall in UK retail destinations improved 4.1% last week according to new data that offers some encouraging signs for retailers.

Data firm Springboard said footfall across all retail destinations throughout the UK rose by 4.1% last week from the week before, a significant acceleration in the rise in the previous week of 0.8% and 1.8% in the same week in 2019.

Non-essential retailers, such as accessories and clothing brands, had to shut shops for the Covid-19 lockdown in March and they were only allowed to reopen from June 15.

The research said the latest rise was driven by increases in footfall of 6.8% in Greater London and 7.1% in the South East. That was a reversal of the previous week when footfall declined in these two regions.

Springboard added that shopper numbers rose in malls, High Streets and retail parks from the prior week.

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Central London footfall improved 12.7% over the week, although the figure is 61.2% lower than a year earlier.

In the capital firms have seen weaker shopper numbers as travel restrictions keep tourists away, and many office workers continue to do their jobs from home.

But Diana Werhle, insights director at Springboard, pointed to wider positive signs. Werhle said: “Footfall in UK retail destinations last week not only rose on a week on week basis, but the uplift was more than four times as large as the week before, and two and a half times as large as the same week last year.”

Werhle added: “The outcome is a further incremental recovery in footfall compared with 2019, and the sixteenth consecutive week in which the annual decline has lessened which offers a glimmer of hope for retailers.”