Springboard detects weekly increase in pedestrian traffic
For the second year in a row footfall in Week 16 increased, with an annual rise of +3.0% and +3.2% from the previous week. The uplift was a consequence of a combination of factors; the offset of Easter this year, with Week 16 including Good Friday and Easter Saturday, the school holiday continuing in certain parts of the UK and also hot sunny weather over the weekend.
All three destination types benefited, with the largest weekly uplift of +5.4% occurring in high streets, while the largest year-on-year rise of +5.5% was in retail parks. Footfall in shopping centres only rose marginally over the week, by +0.1%, and this was clearly due to the fact that consumers wanted to be outside enjoying the sun rather than visiting covered malls.
Increases in footfall were largely universal, with a drop over the year in just one geography (-1.1% in the East Midlands). The further good news is that the positive footfall performance occurred across all three destination types; retail parks and shopping centres both recorded a decline in only one geography, and in three geographies for high streets.
The standout result for high streets was a year on year rise in footfall of +8.6% in the South West, and in retail parks footfall rose by more than +9.0% in the East Midlands and North and Yorkshire. In shopping centres rises in footfall across different geographies were more stable, peaking at +4.9% in the East and South West, but with increases of more than +3.0% in six of the ten geographies.
