High street footfall rises 2.6% as Britain gets back to work

Footfall rose 2.6% in UK high streets - where many workplaces are located – with Greater London high streets seeing an increase of +5.3% in the week 30 August to 5 September, 2020, according to the latest data from Springboard.

However, footfall across all retail destinations rose by a mere 0.4%, taking in to account a dip of -0.9% in footfall at retail parks and -2.7% in shopping centres.

From a broader perspective, the good news is the annual result for UK retail destinations has strengthened to -25%, the best year-on-year change since the start of lockdown.

Despite the improvement in high street footfall, noted is the scale of the shift needed to recover the decline in activity that has occurred, with footfall in Greater London’s high streets remaining 40.9% lower than last year, 51.9% lower in Central London and 39.5% lower in the UK regional cities.

Diane Wehrle, Insights director at Springboard, commented: “The week of August Bank Holiday Monday, which for many households represented the first week that children returned to school, led to a modest rise in footfall across all UK retail destinations.

“Last week’s result was enough to continue the trend of recovery, delivering the best year on year result since the start of the lockdown in March.”