Springboard detects further fall in pedestrian traffic
Despite an annual decline in footfall to all retail destinations of -1.9% last week, the result, comparing to a week of snow in 2018, is an improvement upon the drop of -2.9% of last year. Footfall fell by just -0.3% against the previous week, a result of a week of divided fortunes, with the latter half of the week restoring and counteracting the negativity of the beginning.
The decline permeated across all three location types, as it has since the beginning of the year. A contrast to 2018, when retail parks recorded a growth in numbers of +0.4%. This year, retail parks saw a drop of -0.6% and saw a decline of -0.7% against last week. High street and shopping centre figures fell, although with a slight improvement from the results of 2018, with high streets experiencing a shift from -3.3% in 2018 to -2.4% for last week, and shopping centre numbers dropping -2.0% versus -4.6% in 2018. High streets alone drove an improvement in footfall against the previous week, recording a result of +0.8%.
Regionally, there was little differentiation between the results, with North and Yorkshire and Scotland both improving on last year, whilst the South East saw the greatest decline, falling -4.6% against last year.