Springboard records weekly rise in pedestrian traffic
Footfall rose last week from the week before by +2.1% which is a positive result and no doubt influenced by the fact that it was running up to payday; with a further positive note being that footfall in all destination types improved. However, the uplift was not sufficient to drive an annual rise in footfall, resulting in a year on year decline of -3.8%.
This contrasts with 2018 when footfall rose annually by +0.5%, when the country was in the midst of the hottest summer on record and the excitement surrounding the football world cup; with the key difference being drops in high street and retail park footfall (-5.1% and -1.6%) versus rises in both of these last year. In contrast, while footfall continued to decline annually in shopping centres, the year on year drop of -3.5% was marginally less than the -3.8% last year.
Looking at the results by day gives some further insight into the results for the week. Footfall rose from the week before on five of the seven days, with a particularly strong uplift between Wednesday and Friday, averaging +5% on each day. However, this is likely to have been driven by the prospect of a hot Saturday, and on this day overall footfall did decline from the week before by -0.8%, although footfall in retail parks rose by +0.9%.
Geographically, the rise in footfall from the previous week was comprehensive, spanning all areas, although there were some stand out results. Whilst in seven areas the rise over the week was fairly modest averaging +1.3%, in the South East footfall rose by +3.3%, by +4.6% in the South West and by a significant +8.6% in Northern Ireland. Annually, the result is one that is rather familiar, with a decline in footfall across all geographies although footfall rose in retail parks across four areas (East, East Midlands, Greater London and North & Yorkshire).
