Published
Sep 22, 2020
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UK footfall stays weak, Central London still down more than half

Published
Sep 22, 2020

Visitor traffic to retail destinations rose in the week to September 19, increasing 2.4% compared to the week before. But that wasn't the good news that it might have seemed as the previous week had seen a footfall drop of 6.3%, so the latest period was simply making up some of those losses. 


UK footfall stayed weak in the latest seven-day period - Image: Public domain



And the gap from last year widened with a year-on-year decline of 28.7% versus 27.5% in the week before. Retail parks continued to far outperform high streets and shopping centres, with footfall 12.5% lower than last year compared with annual declines in high streets and shopping centres of 34.3% and 32.6% respectively. 

That's according to specialist tracking company Springboard, which also said that while high streets are still heavily down compared to last year, they saw a 5.2% increase week-on-week. That compared with shopping centres where footfall declined 0.8% and retail parks where it was down 0.3% compared to the week before.

But as mentioned, the week-on-week figures shouldn't be taken as some sign of shopper confidence. For instance, despite an improved performance for Central London last week (up 6% compared to the previous week), footfall remains 56.1% lower than last year, versus 45.3% lower in regional cities and 22.6% lower in market towns. 

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