The latest data from retail expert Springboard reveals that footfall across all UK retail destinations rose by +6% over the week to last Saturday, leading to an annual decline of -26.1%, a noticeable improvement on the YoY drop of -30.7% in the week before.
In the final week of August, the last full week of the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, footfall in all three destination types rose from the week before, mitigating annual declines in each, but the winner last week was shopping centres. The cool, rainy weather encouraged shoppers inside covered centres, leading to a +9.1 % rise in footfall from the week before, leaving footfall -25.6% lower than in 2019, the best result of any week so far since the start of lockdown.
Footfall across the UK's high streets strengthened, rising by +4.8% from the week before, but the recovery of high streets - hampered by far lower levels of activity in large cities, which account for the greatest volumes - is starting to lag behind that of shopping centres, with footfall still -34.9% lower than last year.
The decline in footfall across UK retail destinations from the Bank Holiday weekend last year which fell a week earlier in 2019, averaged just -17.6% across the three days, with a drop of just -11% up to 5pm on Monday.
In both regional cities and Central London footfall strengthened on each day, with annual declines of -20.5% and -39.3% up to 5pm on Monday, compared with -37.6% and -52.6% on Saturday. On Monday, footfall rose from Bank Holiday Monday last year by +2.5% in retail parks and by +2.3% in market towns across the UK. Footfall in Central London and large cities still has a long way to go to reach anywhere near pre-Covid levels, but the result indicates some seeds of recovery.
Diane Wehrle, insights director at Springboard, comments: “The last full week of the Eat Out to Help Out scheme led to the most positive footfall result of any week so far with increases in all three destination types from the week before, and YoY declines that were the most modest since the start of the lockdown. Not only did the week as a whole yield far more positive results those previously but, given the situation we find ourselves in and the much cooler weather this year, the Bank Holiday weekend proved to be a remarkable success for retail destinations.”
