Footfall surges 9% amid city centre recovery

Footfall across all UK retail destinations surged +9.1% annually, with a week-on-week footfall boost of +1.6% as office workers returned to city centres, according to the latest figures from Springboard. It found that consumers returned to UK high streets after train strikes the week previous, as Footfall at MRI Springboard’s Central London ‘Back to the Office’ benchmark tracked a +36.4% boost to footfall compared with 2022. Cities outside the capital also benefited, as annual footfall climbed +19% at regional cities excluding London. In comparison, footfall outside city centres experienced more muted annual increases. Footfall increased annually by just +6.6% at market towns and +8.8% at historic towns. Despite the bounce back, the gap to pre-pandemic levels remained as compared with 2019 levels, footfall was down -14.5% across UK retail destinations. As such, footfall in Central London remains -19.7% below pre-pandemic levels. Diane Wehrle, insights director at MRI Springboard, said: “Footfall across UK retail destinations rose last week from the week before with increases across all three destination types. However, last week was clearly a week when consumers returned to UK high streets following train strikes in the week before last. “Whilst the uplift in high street footfall from the week before was only in line with the average from the start of 2022, it was three times as great as in retail parks and shopping centres. On an annual basis too, the rise in footfall in high streets was nearly double that in shopping centres and 10 times that in retail parks.” She added: “By far the greatest recovery in high footfall from 2022 occurred in large city centres - in London and elsewhere across the UK – most probably driven by employees returning to their offices, whilst there were far more modest year on year increases in smaller high streets. Performance was positive across much of the UK, with rises in footfall from the week before in seven of the 10 geographies.”