Springboard: Heavy Rain Impacted Retail Footfall Last Week

Springboard has published retail footfall data for week 9 (27/02 - 05/03) explaining that footfall was impacted by heavy rain, with high streets and shopping centres most affected.

Springboard Index - High Street Index - Week 9 2022

2022 vs 2021 = +135.7%

2022 vs 2019 = -19.2%

Week-on-week = -4.2%

Springboard's Marketing and Insights Director, Diane Wehrle, said:  

"Despite last week following payday, heavy rain across most of the UK impacted footfall across UK retail destinations.  Footfall declined significantly in both high streets and shopping centres on every day between Monday and Friday, whilst in retail parks the drops were smaller and there was a very modest rise on Tuesday. 

However, so significant were the declines in high streets and shopping centres from Monday onwards that, in the absence of an uplift on the first day of the week on Sunday (which was the bounce back from Storms Dudley and Eunice) the drop over the week as a whole would have doubled.  Even on the final day of the week on Saturday when it was largely dry, footfall in high streets declined from the week before, with only a very modest increase in shopping centres.

Footfall declined across all types of town centre, although people clearly stayed local and worked from home, with only a very modest drop in market towns and a drop in footfall in Outer London was only a third of that in Central London.  Despite the rain, footfall in city centres outside the capital held steady, possibly due to the fact that access by car into cities outside London is easier which is particularly appealing when there is heavy rain, and is one of the factors that support consumer demand for retail parks."

Source : Springboard

Image : Jason Batterham / Shutterstock.com (671551474)

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