Springboard records 10.9 per cent uplift week on week
In overall terms footfall was remarkably resilient last week, with the school half term holiday acting as a fillip to trips to bricks and mortar destinations. Footfall rose by +10.9 per cent from the previous week which was the same magnitude of weekly increase as occurred in week 7 2017 and much improved on the week on week drop of -2 per cent in the previous week.
With a marginal annual decrease of just -0.6 per cent, footfall remained almost level from the same week last year. Underlying this, however, was a differing performance of each destination type; a noticeable drop in footfall in high streets of -2.4 per cent, a virtually flat performance in shopping centres where footfall rose by just +0.2 per cent and a significant uplift in activity of +2.8 per cent in retail parks (the largest annual rise in any week since week 37 2017). However, in part these results were a response to and rebalancing of the annual change recorded last year, when high street footfall rose whilst footfall in shopping centres declined.
Comparing performance across geographies, footfall declined in retail parks in just two areas (-1.9 per cent in the East and -2.7 per cent in the East Midlands) whilst rising by as much as +5.2 per cent in the South East and +4.2 per cent in Scotland. In contrast, in high streets footfall declined in seven areas, ranging from a very marginal -0.04 per cent in the North and Yorkshire to more than -6 per cent in the South East, the South West and Scotland.
