Helen Dickinson, British Retail Consortium Director General, said: "More shoppers were out and about in January, with a solid 1.6 per cent in overall footfall across the country. It’s good news for retailers and it helps to explain the rise in sales we reported earlier in the month, demonstrating that UK shoppers were enthusiastically checking out the promotions available during the sales season.
Highlights:
-Footfall in January was 1.6% higher than a year ago, up on the 2.4% fall in December.
This is the best footfall performance since December 2011, reflecting the positive figures of the BRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor
-High streets reported the only fall, down 0.6%, substantially up from their 3.7% fall in December.
-Footfall in out-of-town locations improved substantially to a 5.7% increase and shopping centres reported an increase of 2.4%.
-Greater London reported the greatest increase in regional footfall, up 3.2% year-on-year.
-The national town centre vacancy rate in the UK was 11.0% in January 2014, a decrease from October’s rate of 11.0%.
“Out-of-town retail parks and shopping centres did particularly well this month, up 5.7 per cent and 2.4 per cent respectively. The High Street performed a little worse, with numbers of shoppers dropping slightly, by 0.6 per cent.
“The number of vacant shop units across the country remains high. However, it is encouraging to see that it’s marginally down at 11.0 per cent. Empty shops hurt local economies, and there still a need to reduce the costs of operating property by reforming the business rates system.”
Diane Wehrle, Retail Insights Director at Springboard, said: “’After such a challenging Christmas trading period, it is encouraging to see that footfall in our retail destinations increased annually in January by 1.6 per cent. Not only is this the largest increase since December 2011 (which was in part a function of the dreadful weather in December 2010) but the first annual rise in footfall since July 2013.
‘’This result demonstrates that whilst the growth of online retailing continues apace, retail destinations remain attractive to shoppers and that retailers’ approach in delivering a multichannel offer is the right one.
At the same time, however, all of the annual increase in footfall was driven by visits to shopping centres and particularly to retail parks, rather than to high streets, although this is likely to be a combination of the adverse impact of the ongoing rain on visits to external environments and the demand for furniture which drives visits to retail parks and supported January’s strong sales results.
Despite the tough trading conditions in retail locations over the second half of 2013, the drop in the vacancy rate from 11.1 per cent to 11.0 per cent indicates a degree of optimism about future trading conditions.’’
Country and Region Footfall and Vacancy Analysis
Three regions in England reported footfall above or in line with the UK average – Greater London (3.2%), East Midlands (2.9%) and North & Yorkshire (1.6%).
Northern Ireland reported a significant improvement in its footfall rate, down 2.0% in January from an 8.7% fall in December. Wales (0.1%) and Scotland (-1.8%) both reported footfall below the UK average.
Four regions had a vacancy rate lower than the UK average - Greater London (6.4%), the East (10.0%), the East Midlands (10.9%) and South East (9.7%). Northern Ireland and Wales reported the highest vacancy rates, at 18.0% and 16.4% respectively, an improvement on the October figures, while Scotland remained unchanged at 11.1%.