UK weekly footfall rises as more office workers hit high streets

By

Nigel TAYLOR

Published
Jan 17, 2022

Early signs of the confidence shown by workers returning to their offices meant there was a boost for UK high street footfall in the latest week.

Footfall across UK retail destinations rose 1.5% week-on-week in the seven days to 15 January, emanating wholly from high streets where footfall jumped 7.2%, according to Springboard. 

By comparison, footfall in retail parks declined 4.9% and shopping centres recorded a 4% dip.

This is supported by the increase in footfall across towns from the previous week, which ranged from +3.6% in historic towns to +12% in Springboard's Central London Back to the Office benchmark. 

Yet from Sunday to Wednesday, footfall actually declined every day, averaging -7.4% over the four days and -12.4% over Monday and Tuesday. 

It was from Thursday to Saturday that footfall increased every day from the previous week, averaging +13.4% over the three days and peaking on Saturday with an uplift of +17.3% from the Saturday before. That Saturday performance is unlikely to have been directly linked to the office return but would have been a general vote of confidence in physical shopping.

In high streets, the uplift over the final three days of the week from the week before was even greater, averaging +21.2% and peaking at +30.1% on Saturday. 

By sharp contrast, footfall in retail parks on Saturday was 2.7% lower than in the week before.

The gap from 2019 narrowed marginally to -21.3% across all UK retail destinations last week, but the strong performance of high streets improved their position relative to 2019 to -26.9% from -30.9% in the week before. 

By contrast, the drop in footfall in retail parks and shopping centres meant that the gap in footfall from 2019 in both destination types widened to -4.2% and -26% respectively.