Warmer weather sees footfall in UK high streets jump 4.2%

The warm and sunny spring weather last week – from 13-19 March – gave footfall in UK high streets a 4.2% boost on the previous week.

However, footfall across all UK retail destinations rose by a more modest 2.3%, as footfall in shopping centres and retail parks were up just 0.5% and 0.1% respectively, according to the latest data from retail experts Springboard.

From Thursday 17 March onwards, when the weather really warmed up, footfall rose by 8.1% across all retail destinations, boosted by a 12.4% rise in high street footfall.

But it was Friday 18 March when the uplift across all retail destinations doubled to +16.1%, with high street footfall also doubling to +25.8% from the previous week. Footfall in coastal towns rose by a massive 40.8% on Friday versus an average of +24.7% in other town types, and then by +10.7% on Saturday 19 March, while across all other town types it rose by just 2.1% on Saturday.

Despite the strong footfall performance last week, the gap from the 2019 level widened marginally to -15.2% across all retail destinations from -13.1% in the week before, although it more than doubled to +112.4% from the same week in 2021, which was during Lockdown 3.

Diane Wehrle, Insights Director at Springboard, said: “Footfall rose from the week before on five of the seven days last week, with drops on Sunday and Wednesday when it rained across much of the UK. There was a surprisingly strong uplift in footfall in high streets on Friday given that it was a working day, which was more than five times as large as the rise on Saturday.

“Interestingly, this could be a real sign that hybrid home/office working may be making it more feasible for consumers to make spontaneous trips to destinations outside of the weekend, a trend we expect to see rise.”