UK retail footfall unexpectedly strengthens in August

Footfall unexpectedly strengthened across UK retail destinations in August, increasing from -14.2% in July to -13.2% last month.

According to retail experts Springboard, continuous heat throughout August encouraged staycations, fuelling activity in retail destinations, while many consumers booked long-deferred international getaways, driving pre-holiday spending in the process.

Rising temperatures during the middle of the month only had a localised and short-lived impact on footfall, with the week-on-week change in high street footfall in the middle of the month averaging -3.8% versus an average increase of +2.6% over the first and last weeks.

Footfall strengthened in high streets to -15.1% and to -17.5% in shopping centres, but worsened in retail parks to -4.5%.

Springboard now expects to see a traditional dip in footfall from August to September as schools go back, something that has occurred every year since it started publishing footfall data in 2009, and also anticipates that it will be "at least equal to or even greater than" the -3.3% recorded in September 2019.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com