Retail Footfall Continued To Rise Ahead Of First Lockdown Anniversary

Springboard has updated on retail footfall levels for the week leading up to the one year anniversary of national lockdown.

Week 11, 2021 data shows overall footfall rose by 0.5%, driven by a 4% rise in high street shoppers.  Retail park footfall declined by 4.4% and shopping centres dropped by 2.3% week-on-week. 

Shopping centre footfall declined by 55.9% compared with the same week in 2020 and was 66.6% down on 2019.   

Diane Wehrle, insights director at Springboard, said:

"Footfall across UK retail destinations continued to strengthen last week, with a modest rise from the week before.  At the same time, the annual decline improved significantly but this is a distortion created by a huge drop in footfall in the same week last year as we approached the start of the first Lockdown on Monday 23rd March 2020. To mitigate this distortion, and to provide the appropriate context to fully understand footfall performance as we move forward, from here on in we will also draw a comparison with 2019. 

The entire rise in footfall last week from the week before was driven by high streets, whilst footfall in retail parks and shopping centres declined. Footfall rose across all types of high street, with the largest increase occurring in large city centres. Performance across the week was volatile for all three destination types, but there was a distinct peak on Wednesday when the rain - which has been a persistent feature between Sunday and Tuesday - cleared in many places for just one day."

Source : Springboard

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