​UK footfall down, but rate slows in second lockdown week - Springboard

By

Nigel TAYLOR

Published
Jan 18, 2021

Footfall across all UK retail destinations last week continued to make tough reading as the ongoing country-wide lockdown still depresses and frustrates in equal measures.

For the latest Sunday to Saturday (10-16 January) trading period, footfall declined 10.9% from the week before when visits fell 27% compared to the previous week, the latest figures from Springboard show. 

Footfall was 14.6% lower in shopping centres and 11.5% down in high streets. However, footfall in retail parks performed the best yet again due to retail parks being key destinations for essential retailers, with a drop of just 5.8%. 

UK footfall is now 67.5% lower than in the same week of 2020. But this is still some way off from the lowest level of -82.2% reached during the first lockdown, or even the level in the second week of lockdown 1.0 when footfall had declined 75.1%, Springboard noted.
 
Meanwhile, the figures also show the rate of decline in footfall varied from region to region, ranging from as much as -17.6% in the North & Yorkshire, to just -4.7% in Wales, while rising by +1.6% in Scotland, driven by an increase in activity on its high streets of 6%.

In all other areas of the UK, high street footfall declined by between 6% (East Midlands) to 20.4% (North & Yorkshire).