UK footfall dips despite hot and sunny weather

The sunny weather last week, 18-24 June, failed to tempt shoppers as footfall across all UK retail destinations declined by 2.3% compared to the week before.

That was in stark contrast with the week before last when footfall rose by an average of 2.9%, driven by increases in all three destination types, according to the latest data from retail experts MRI Springboard.

The most resilient of all three retail destinations proved to be shopping centres last week, where footfall dropped 1.7%, while high streets saw a 1.9% decrease. The highest drop came from retail parks where the week-on-week drop in footfall of 3.7% exceeded the rise of 3.1% recorded in the week before last.

Other key findings revealed:

• Last week, across the town types, it was only in Central London where footfall rose from the week before by 1.1%, with drops of 4.8% in coastal towns, a fall of 4% in market towns, 3% in outer London and 1.3% in historic towns.
• Despite the drop in footfall over the week, the annual uplift from 2022 remained at 4.9%.
• The gap from the 2019 footfall level nearly doubled to -11.3% from -6.8% in the week before last.

Diane Wehrle, Insights Director at MRI Springboard, said: “Despite the hot and sunny weather, it seems that the bounce back in footfall across UK retail destinations recorded in the week before last was short-lived, with a dip in footfall last week of nearly the same magnitude.

“Footfall across UK retail destinations declined from the week before on six of the seven days last week, although in shopping centres there were week on week increases on three of the seven days. With another month before most of the schools break up for the summer break not even the hot weather helped coastal and historic towns where footfall declined from the week before, as it did in both market towns and outer London. Central London was the only town type where footfall rose, albeit marginally.”