UK retail footfall drops in second week of lockdown

Visits to UK shops continued to fall in the second full week of lockdown but the rate of decline was less than under the first Covid-19 shutdown, a survey showed.

Footfall dropped 10.9% in the week starting 10 January, less than half the drop the previous week, according to Springboard data.

Visits to stores fell 14.6% in shopping centres, 11.5% in high streets and 5.8% in retail parks. Footfall was 67.5% lower than a year earlier - a smaller decline than the lowest level reached during the first lockdown, which was a drop of 82%.

The rate of decline in footfall from the week before averaged 23.6% on Sunday and Monday. From Tuesday onwards this slowed to an average drop of just 5.5%, with a rise of +3.3% on Friday.

Diane Wehrle, insights director at Springboard, said: "In what was the second full week of lockdown across the UK, footfall in retail destinations once again declined from the previous week, although the rate of decline slowed to less than half of that in the week before. This means that the annual decline in footfall has still not equalled either the lowest level in lockdown 1 even the level in the second week of Lockdown 1."

The biggest week-on-week decline was in Northern Ireland where footfall dropped 17.6%. Greater London dropped 7.1% and in the North and Yorkshire footfall rose 1.6%.