Last week, the UK saw a decline in footfall as temperatures dropped, resulting in a significant decrease of up to 7.3% on high streets. However, central London experienced a boost with a 3.8% increase as consumers flocked to popular areas of the city in search of festive activities.
According to Springboard, overall footfall across the UK increased by a marginal 0.3% compared to the previous week. While there were some peaks earlier in the week, footfall decreased by Friday and dropped by 4.9% on Saturday across all UK destinations. High streets were particularly impacted, experiencing a significant 7.3% decline.
One bright spot was Tuesday, which recorded a 6.4% rise just before the arrival of the cold weather. However, these figures were collected before the snowfall on Sunday, indicating that the current week will also be negatively affected. The heavy snowfall has resulted in major transportation cancellations, making it difficult for consumers to access shops and causing some staff to be unable to make it to work. Railway companies even actively discouraged people from taking trains altogether on Monday morning.
Looking at specific locations, footfall in shopping centers increased by 2.2% compared to the week before, and retail parks experienced a 0.9% increase. However, footfall on high streets decreased by 0.9%.
When comparing footfall to the same period in 2021, last week saw an uplift of 10.3%, an increase from the 8.8% recorded in the previous week. High street footfall was particularly notable, recording a significant 16.2% increase compared to the same week last year. This narrows the overall gap to a deficit of 9.6% compared to the pre-pandemic period, indicating a remarkable recovery.
The increase in footfall in city centers, especially central London, is a significant step toward normalcy. In central London, footfall was up by 34% compared to the previous year, with a 3.8% increase from the previous week. Importantly, footfall in central London is only 3.2% lower than the pre-pandemic period, despite the absence of international tourists in large numbers, as seen before the Covid-19 pandemic.
In regional cities excluding London, footfall increased by 21.6% compared to the same time last year. However, footfall experienced a slight decline of 3.5% compared to the previous week, possibly influenced by the inclusion of Black Friday in the previous week’s figures. Notably, these cities are now only 7% below the footfall recorded during the same period in 2019.
Useful links:
1. High street footfall declines as temperatures drop
2. Springboard’s latest footfall report
