The extreme heat occurring today and tomorrow had already impacted footfall in UK retail destinations in the period up to 11am today according to Springboard figures.
Diane Wehrle, insights director at Springboard, said: “Typically, when the weather is hot and sunny, shoppers gravitate to outdoor location, and so footfall in high streets tends to increase while decreasing in shopping centres. However, with the extreme heat today the reverse has occurred, with a drop in footfall in high streets of -7.3% over the period up to 11am, while in both shopping centres and retail parks – both of which offer air-conditioned environments – footfall rose by +1.6% and +1.3% respectively.”
She said the impact on high streets was demonstrated even more clearly in different types of towns across the UK.
“In city centres footfall was -11.5% lower than last week and -16.1% lower in Central London. People are clearly working at home today as advised, as Springboard’s Central London “Back to the Office” benchmark which tracks footfall in areas of Central London that are in close proximity to offices was down by -18.1%. In sharp contrast, footfall in coastal towns across the UK was up by +9% from last Monday.
“The only parts of the UK where high street footfall rose from last Monday were Scotland (+0.6%), Northern Ireland (+0.6%) and Wales (+3.2%) where temperatures, whilst still hot, are lower than in England.
“As the day progresses and the heat increases, we are anticipating that the gap between footfall in high streets and shopping centres will widen further.”
