September footfall down as retail park growth slows

September footfall dropped 1.2% year on year, which was the same drop as in August and in line with the three-month average.

High-street footfall led the decline, dropping 2.2%. However, the drop decelerated from August when footfall decreased 2.6%.

Shopping centres declined 1%, up from 0.8% in August.

Conversely, retail park footfall growth dropped from 1.6% in August to 1.1%.

BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson said: “September’s footfall figures have a sense of unwelcome déjà vu around them.

“For the third consecutive month, most shopping destinations suffered a decline, with retail parks continuing to buck the trend; attracting more visitors than the previous year and the opposite being true for high streets.

“There’s an urgent need to stall the growing number of retail locations, particularly in more vulnerable parts of the country, falling further and further behind by attracting shoppers to retail destinations with the right mix of products, experience and convenience.”

Dickinson added that the cost of doing business left retailers in a quandary as it left “little to no wiggle room” for investment in store proposition.

She labelled the prospect of business rates surging by £250m in 2018 as “deeply worrying”, saying it would “only serve to make things tougher on the high street” and called on Chancellor Philip Hammond to scrap the rates rise in next month’s budget.