Springboard reports footfall traffic level
The continuing good weather supported retail destinations to some degree last week, although the -0.8% drop in footfall from the week before compared with a week on week rise of +0.6% in the same week last year indicated that it certainly wasn’t universal. High streets were the weakest location type, with footfall dropping by -2.1% over the week whilst in shopping centres footfall dipped only marginally by -0.1%. Footfall in retail parks footfall rose by +1.4% from the week before.
Footfall levels are lower than last year, with an annual decline across all destinations of -1.8%, although the good news is that this represented a slight slowing in decline compared with the year on year drop of -2.3% in the same week last year. On an annual basis, shopping centres were by far the weakest destination type, with a drop in footfall of -4.4% compared with just -1.3% in 2018; whilst for high streets the situation was reversed with footfall declining annually by just -1.2% versus a drop of -4.3% in 2018.
Geographically, results were varied with an increase over the week in four areas of the UK (East Midlands, North & Yorkshire, the South West and the West Midlands), albeit in all but the West Midlands the rise was less than +1% (+1.7% in the West Midlands). In contrast, footfall dropped by -2.7% in Northern Ireland, by -2.2% in Greater London, by -1.9% in Wales and by -1.6% in Scotland.
