Latest data from retail experts Springboard reveals that footfall in UK retail destinations rose by +6.7% last week from the week before, but it was the average uplift in activity from Thursday to Saturday of +15.2% that drove the increase for the week compared with an average rise in footfall of just +0.8% between Sunday and Wednesday.

Shoppers made the most of the bank holiday weekend, with an average increase over Thursday and Friday of +20.6%. The hot sunny weather over the weekend clearly helped retail destinations, and whilst footfall rose by a relatively modest +4.4% on Saturday, on bank holiday Sunday footfall rose by

+25% from the week before and by +47.4% in UK high streets. The good news continued into Monday, with a rise in footfall of +16% across all UK destinations, and by +29.3% in UK high streets.

In Central London footfall rose by +17% from the week before, a larger rise than in any other high street type other than coastal towns where it rose by +18.2% - undoubtedly driven by the hot sunny weather over the weekend. In larger cities outside London footfall rose by +9.2%, by +9.8% in market towns and by +8.1% in Outer London.

Despite the uplift last week, footfall remains -26.8% lower than in 2019, although this is a marginal improvement on the position last week when it was -28.7% lower than in 2019.

Diane Wehrle, Insights Director at Springboard commented: “Despite rain continuing to persist at the beginning of last week, footfall in UK retail destinations rose from the week before, with the increase also being far greater than in the past five weeks. It was apparent that shoppers intended to make the most of the bank holiday weekend – and the good weather that was forecast - as footfall rose by substantially more on Thursday and Friday than earlier in the week.

“Footfall rose in all three destination types last week from the previous week, but it was high streets that dominated in terms of uplift. All types of high street benefited, with Central London and coastal towns leading the way. The increase in activity in Central London was nearly double that in large city centres elsewhere in the UK, whilst the increases in market towns and outer London high streets were slightly lower, suggesting that shoppers are starting to gravitate towards larger locations.”

Springboard

Springboard is the leading provider of insights on bricks and mortar retail activity, tracking and forecasting footfall and delivering performance metrics across all key retail destination types at national and regional levels since 2002. Springboard has the most comprehensive footfall data set in the UK using the latest generation automated technology, recording over 159 million footfall counts per week at 3,600 counting points in 1,300 shopping locations in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Springboard is part of the Government High Street Task Force working to revitalise local high streets across the UK.