Footfall impacted by wet weather and 10pm curfew
New data has shown that UK retail footfall dropped by 3.5% last week from the previous seven days.
Retail specialist Springboard found that footfall declined by 7.1% in high streets but remained flat in shopping centres and edged up 0.8% in retail parks.
Springboard said all of the decline came in the second half of the week after torrential rain spread across the country.
The figures show that footfall fell across all types of high street, but the greatest declines were seen in coastal towns where footfall dropped by 11.6%.
The figures also reveal that the 10pm curfew had an impact on activity on retail destinations. Whilst footfall declined by 2.9% between 7am and 7pm in comparison to the week before, the decline increased to 8.4% between 7pm and 11pm and to 14.8% between 11pm and 7am.
Diane Wehrle, insights director at Springboard, said: “For the second consecutive week, and only the third week since the beginning of May, footfall across retail destinations declined last week from the week before. Part of the cause of the decline, particularly in high streets, was the rainy weather during the second half of the week that led to a double digit drop in footfall on both Friday and Saturday.
“However, the 10pm curfew is clearly having an impact; whilst shopping centres and retail parks with only minimal evening economy activity are holding their own, high streets – where the majority of evening economy activity occurs – are feeling the effect, with a drop in footfall post 7pm that is twice as great as that during working hours, and four times as great post 11pm.”
Springboard’s figures show that footfall across all retail destinations is now 31.4% lower than the same time last year.
Wehrle added: “Inevitably the gap in activity from last year widened further, particularly in high streets, where footfall is now more than a third lower than it was in 2019.”
Photo by Georgia Hawkins
