Springboard reports the negative impact of the autumn school term
The first full week following the start of the Autumn school term yielded similar results to last year, according to pedestrian traffic analysts Springboard, reporting that footfall across all UK retail destinations declined from the previous week by -2.6 per cent (in 2018 there was a drop from the week before of -2.2 per cent). On an annual basis, however, footfall improved from last year with a drop of -1.2 per cent versus -2.7 per cent in 2018 which is a glimmer of more positive news.
The shift from last year varied across the three destination types; a significant improvement in retail parks where footfall rose by +1.7 per cent versus a drop of -2.3 per cent last year, and in shopping centres, whilst footfall still dropped by -2.0 per cent, this was less than half the -4.9 per cent year on year decline in 2018. High streets, however, did not benefit from any improvement, with an annual drop of -2.2 per cent compared with -1.8 per cent last year.
The results over the week were also similar to last year for each of the destination types; footfall in UK high streets declined marginally by -0.8 per cent (-0.7 per cent in 2018), in shopping centres by -5.3 per cent (slightly larger than the -4.2 per cent drop in 2018) and in retail parks by -3.7 per cent (-3.4 per cent in 2018).
