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New tiered Covid-19 restrictions have ‘immediate impact’ on UK footfall

By Huw Hughes

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Retail

The government’s new three-tier system to mitigate the spread of covid-19 in the UK has had an “immediate impact” on shopper traffic.

Footfall fell by 3.1 percent across all retail destinations last week from the week before, with similar rates of decline experienced across all three destination types (-2.8 percent in high streets, -3 percent in retail parks and -3.5 percent in shopping centres).

That large overall drop drove the annual result for all UK retail destinations down to -32.3 percent from -30.9 percent the week before.

It comes after Boris Johnson announced at the beginning of last week a new three-tier system in which areas of England are classified as either medium, high or very high alert - with each classification requiring a different extent of restrictions.

Larger towns were hit hardest by the new measures, with footfall across regional cities falling 5.7 percent versus drops of 2.1 percent in market towns and 1.2 percent in coastal towns.

Drops in footfall were also more significant in Northern towns, where more strict measures are in place. The 5 percent decline in footfall in the North & Yorkshire region was the highest of any area of the UK.

“The additional Covid tiered restrictions had an immediate impact on footfall in retail destinations last week with an across the board week on week decline; the fourth consecutive drop and also greater than that in previous weeks,” Springboard insights director Diane Wehrle said in a statement.

“The drop in footfall was equally severe across all three destination types, although on an annual basis retail parks continue to remain by far the most resilient. Notwithstanding this, the year on year decline in footfall in all three destination types accelerated once again, with the largest gap between this year and last year for nine weeks.”

Photo credit: FashionUnited

Footfall
Springboard