​UK high streets shine as bank holiday weekend weather boosts footfall

By

Nigel TAYLOR

Published
Jun 2, 2021

Much-improved spring bank holiday weekend weather and the desire to shop meant footfall across the country finally blossomed. Visits to UK retail destinations rose by 6.7% week-on-week for the seven days between to 29 May, according to the latest data from Springboard.

While footfall rose by a relatively modest 4.4% on the Saturday, on Sunday footfall rose 25% and by a stunning 47.4% on UK high streets, becoming the major beneficiary of the much-improved weather.

By comparison, enclosed shopping centre footfall was up a more modest 3.3% and retail parks could only muster a 1.6% rise.

The good news continued into Monday, with a rise in footfall of 16% across all UK destinations, and by 29.3% to UK high streets.

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. 

And shoppers made the most of the bank holiday weekend, with an average increase over Thursday and Friday of 20.6%.

In Central London, footfall rose also 17% from the week before, a larger rise than in any other high street type. Unless we include coastal towns where an 18.2% rise was undoubtedly driven by the hot sunny weather over the weekend.

In larger cities outside London, footfall rose by 9.2%, while it was up by 9.8% in market towns and by 8.1% in Outer London. 

But despite last week’s uplift, footfall still remains 26.8% lower than in 2019, showing there’s some way to go until lockdown effects are fully lifted and confidence over the containment of the virus greatly improves in certain regions.