Springboard: UK Footfall Rose Last Week

Springboard has published retail footfall data for week 2, explaining that UK footfall rose last week, driven by a return to the high street

Springboard Index - Shopping Centre Index - Week 2 2022

2022 vs 2021 = +206.1%

2022 vs 2019 = -26.0%

Week-on-week = -4.0%

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

"The second week of the year delivered mixed results; an overall increase in footfall across all UK retail destinations from the week before, but a rise that was driven wholly by high streets, whilst in both retail parks and shopping centres activity declined. 

The week was also one of two halves, with declines in footfall from Sunday to Wednesday (reaching double digits on Monday and Tuesday), but then followed by three consecutive days with significant uplifts in footfall. This pattern was replicated across all destination types, however, in shopping centres and retail parks the magnitude of the uplifts in footfall from Thursday to Saturday were not enough to offset the drops over the first four days. Unusually in retail parks footfall declined on Saturday, whilst increasing to a significant degree in both high streets and shopping centres. 

It seems that whilst the government's Plan B guidance to work from home if possible is still in place, there are the first signs that employees are starting to drift back to the office; for the first time since mid November footfall rose in high streets from the week before across all periods of the day, with a double digit increase in the first part of the day, when employees travel in to offices, for the second consecutive week.  

In addition, footfall rose in all types of town, including Central London and regional cities outside of the capital, and the increase in Springboard's Central London Back to the Office benchmark (comprising those locations in close proximity to offices) exceeded the increase in footfall across Central London as a whole."

Source : Springboard

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