Cold snap leads to 5.2% drop in footfall
The prolonged cold snap led to retail footfall falling by 5.2% in March compared to the same month last year. This is the weakest performance since April 2012 when footfall declined by 6.9%.
The British Retail Consortium’s monthly footfall monitor in association with Springboard revealed that footfall weakened in all locations in March compared with a year earlier. High streets reported the greatest fall at -7%, the weakest performance since July 2012. This was followed by out-of-town outlets at -4.2% and shopping centres at -2.4%.
The decline has been blamed on the wintry weather last month especially when compared against the unseasonably warm weather in March last year.
Helen Dickinson, BRC director general, said: “The prolonged cold was the main culprit for deterring shoppers, especially compared against the far milder March of 2012.
Never Miss a Retail Update!“Although footfall did pick up around the Easter weekend, it couldn’t fully compensate for a weak showing across the month as a whole.”
All seven regions in England reported a decline in footfall with the East Midlands putting in the worst performance at -8.1%.
In Wales footfall was down by 5.4% with Northern Ireland and Scotland seeing declines of 4% and 3.8% respectively.
