Retail Footfall

UK footfall sees ‘encouraging’ improvement

The BRC-Sensormatic IQ Footfall Monitor reveals that high streets and shopping centres both showed further recovery.

UK footfall saw another “encouraging” improvement in May, although it was 12.5% lower than pre-pandemic figures, according to the BRC-Sensormatic IQ Footfall Monitor.

The data shows May footfall stayed above -22% throughout the month, with the first three weeks above -11%.

The figures reveal that high streets and shopping centres both showed an improvement in recovery on April’s figures. High street recovery improved by 3.6 percentage points compared to April, to a decline of 13.6% in May. This was the highest recovery point seen since March 2020 and was the best month-on-month improvement for all shopping locations.

Shopping Centre recovery improved by 0.9 percentage points compared to a month earlier, to a decline of 26.7% in May. Again, this was the highest recovery point seen since March 2020.

The data shows that England saw the strongest recovery of all the UK’s nations in May, with a decline of 11.9%, and is the best-performing nation for two out of the past four months.

Scotland remained behind the rest of the UK for the tenth consecutive period, with a decline of 16.4% in May 2022 when compared to the same month in 2019. Northern Ireland and Wales saw a footfall decline of 12.9% and 16.0%, respectively, in May.

For the second consecutive month, the best performing city was Manchester, with a decline of 5.3%. The worst performing city was Leeds, also for the second consecutive month, with a decline of 19.0%.

Andy Sumpter, Retail Consultant – EMEA at Sensormatic Solutions, added: “With households already starting to feel the pinch of the rising cost of living and growing inflationary pressures, retailers will be hoping that cracks don’t start to appear in the footfall recovery.”