Springboard records 2.3 per cent drop in pedestrian traffic
Encompassing both the bank holiday weekend and the final full week before the return to school for England and Wales, footfall increased +0.6 per cent against the previous week for the UK but saw a drop of -2.3 per cent against last year, a worsening on the annual drop of -1.2 per cent of last year. Although the overall results by location type were mixed, the rain of Sunday last week had a significant impact in driving consumers away from retail locations.
The downward trend in the annual result was driven by a drop of -4.3 per cent on the high street, with results ranging from -9.6 per cent in Wales to -0.5 per cent in Ireland. However, when looking at the results by day, it is clear to see the impact of the weather on Sunday upon the whole week, which concluded in an annual drop of-21.6 per cent for the day for high streets, excluding this, high street numbers are on par with those of shopping centres for the rest of the week.
Shopping centres saw a weekly increase of +2.0 per cent, with consumers likely to have been driven indoors by the rain and the back to school shop, numbers dropped by -1.3 per cent against last year but this is an improvement upon both the drop of -2.4 per cent last year and the current year to date of -3.0 per cent. Retail park traffic improved by +2.6 per cent against the previous week and annually +0.7 per cent reinforcing once again their resilience as a format against factors which impact other location types.
