Springboard detects fall in footfall with retail parks underperforming
Footfall declined marginally last week, by -0.5 per cent against last year and the same against the previous week, on par with the annual drop of -0.4 per cent in the same week last year. The difference from last year, however is a shift in the relative performances of each of the location types as high streets improved, and retail parks dropped. The week was split into 2 halves, with Sunday to Tuesday seeing growth with a drop on Wednesday and then a gradual improvement during the rest of the week (mostly influenced by the high street).
Performance for the week overall against last year, was saved by visitors to the high street, with growth of +0.8 per cent, driven by uplifts throughout the week but significantly on Sunday, Tuesday and Saturday. Scotland led with an annual rise of +5.7 per cent with Greater London seeing an increase of +2.2 per cent. But it was shopping centres alone that saw an increase against the previous week, with an improvement of +0.4 per cent while high streets and retail parks dropped -0.6 per cent and -1.25 respectively.
Footfall in both retail parks and shopping centres declined from last year, albeit that the drop in retail parks of -0.7 per cent was only a fraction of the result in shopping centres of -3.1 per cent. Both of these results are a significant change on the performance of 2017, where retail parks improved by +1.3 per cent and shopping centres dropped just -1.4 per cent. Overall, it was only Greater London, Scotland and the West Midlands which saw a combined improvement across all location types against last year.
