Footfall figures less gloomy

Footfall and Vacancies Monitor: BRC-Springboard

Footfall in February was only 0.5% lower than a year ago, an improvement on the 1.2% fall in January
This is above the three-month average of -0.8% and best overall footfall performance since May 2014
Footfall in out-of-town locations fared the best with a 1.0% increase year-on-year
Four regions and countries reported footfall lower than a year ago, with Wales and Greater London reporting the greatest declines

Footfall in March was 1.8% higher than a year ago, significantly up on the 2.9% fall in February and above the three-month average of 0.4%.
Footfall on the high street was 2.6% higher than the previous year for March, the largest rise in eleven months
Out-of-Town reported the greatest rise, 3.0% higher than a year ago, while footfall in shopping centers was down 0.5% on the previous year.

(Unfortunately, it looks like Easter was quieter than we all hoped)

Footfall in February was 2.9% lower than a year ago, down on the 1.6% rise in January and below the three-month average of -1.1%.
High streets reported the greatest fall, down 5.3%, which is the largest drop since March 2013
Footfall in out-of-town locations experienced a rise of 2.3% while shopping centres fell by 2.4%

Footfall in October was 2.9% lower than a year ago, down on the 2.4% fall in September.
On a three-month rolling basis, this is the worst performance since the start of the year, excluding Easter distortions
High streets reported the greatest fall, down 3.6%, followed by shopping centres, unchanged from September’s 2.9% decline.
Footfall in out-of-town locations improved slightly to -1.2%.

In H1 2013 the GB shop vacancy rate has remained stable at 14.1% (-0.1% on 2012)
The number of vacant shops empty shops in the top 650 town centres is 22,339
The number of food and beverage (leisure) units has expanded at three times the rate of shops, +0.9% v +0.3%
The oversupply of shops in Great Britain has already been identified but, the stock has grown in the last six months by 403 units
Wales has the highest national shop vacancy rate at 17.5%
Scotland and Wales have shown an improvement in shop vacancy rates by -0.6% and -0.5% respectively whilst England’s worsened by 0.1%
The best performing region by a long way (3.4%) is London at 9.4%
The worst performing region remains as the North West at 20.1%
The East Midlands has shown the greatest improvement at -0.4%
Shopping centres continue to have the highest overall vacancy rate at 16.1%, followed by large (13.5%) and medium (11.9%) town centres, retail parks (9.6%) and small town centres (9.2%)