Footfall impacted by Plan B announcement
New figures have revealed that retail footfall dropped by 1.1% last week from the previous seven day period despite the fact that Plan B Covid-19 restrictions had not fully come into force.
The data from retail specialist Springboard shows that the number of visits to from Central London was down 3% from the week before while regional cities saw a 1.6% decline.
In contrast, footfall in market towns edged up 1.5%.
Looking at the different types of retail destination, footfall in high streets and retail parks declined by 2.7% and 0.04% respectively while the number visits to shopping centres rose by 1.1%. Springboard attributed this partly to Tuesday’s poor weather.
Diane Wehrle, insights director at Springboard, said: “The hoped for pre-Christmas boost in trading did not materialise last week, with footfall in UK retail destinations declining from the week before, all of which was driven by a reduction in activity in high streets. Footfall did rise in retail parks and shopping centres, but only by a marginal amount which wasn’t enough to deliver an uplift overall.
“Whilst Plan B restrictions, such as advice to work from home if possible, don’t come into force until today, it appears to have already had an impact last week, with a decline in Springboard’s Central London Back to the Office benchmark that was nearly double the drop in footfall in Central London as a whole.”
