London footfall plunges as Springboard records "worst ever" numbers

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Mar 23, 2020

Specialist footfall tracking firm Springboard confirmed on Monday what most of us already knew – retail visitor numbers are dropping through the floor. And central London, much of which is now shut down, has borne the brunt of the decline with a year-on-year drop of over 60% last week. The company said that the UK is “starting to see the true impact of coronavirus on consumer activity”. 

The result for the week before last had begun to reveal the potential impact of coronavirus on this activity, but Springboard said it “pales into insignificance” against the result for last week where footfall declined by 21.7% week-on-week, and 28% on the year.

That said, some might have thought that the overall decline would be even greater given the virtual absence of consumers from some high streets, shopping centres and retail parks. But given that the figures were taken for the week as a whole, it's clear that a smaller drop early in the week balanced out plunges later on.

As the week progressed, footfall across destinations as a whole deteriorated each day, moving from a week-on-week drop of 18.2% on Sunday to -38% on Saturday, and likewise on an annual basis from -22.9% on Sunday to -48% on Saturday.

Diane Wehrle, Insights Director at Springboard, explained that the decline in footfall week-on-week “was on par with the drop normally only ever seen in the week post-Christmas. The annual change represented an unprecedented decline in retail footfall that was three times greater than the worst result we have ever previously recorded.” 

So which locations seem to be suffering the most? High streets were hit hardest, with a drop in footfall of 31% from the week before and 41% from the same week in 2019. The panic-buying of food and household essentials meant that in retail parks — where many large food stores are situated — footfall declined by only 2.9% on both a weekly and annual basis. 

In fact, these locations saw both weekly and annual increases on four consecutive days between Monday to Thursday, averaging +2.5% on a weekly basis, and +3.3% annually. By Friday and Saturday however, the panic-buying had started to ease, with footfall declining on both days on a weekly and annual basis, and at an increasing rate. 

On Saturday, footfall in retail parks was 13.4% lower than on the same Saturday in the previous week and 18% lower than the same Saturday in 2019. 

Geographically, the drop in footfall was over 20% in every area of the UK. London was hit hardest with an annual drop in footfall of 31.1% over the week. And the annual drop in footfall in Central London was far higher at 63.3%, but with more residents working at home the decline in footfall in outer London was more modest at 21.9%.