The company, which monitors visitors to 135 shopping centres across the UK, said poor figures had disappointed retailers, who were hoping for a bumper start to the half-term holiday.
Traditionally, retailers expect an increase in sales of summer items at half term because of better weather, but visits over the bank holiday were affected by hot summer days, followed by changeable and windy conditions.
For the three days, the number of visits fell 1.3 per cent compared with last year. Saturday was similar to last year, Sunday was up 3.6 per cent and bank holiday Monday was down more than 7 per cent on the same day last year.
FootFall business planning director David Smyth said: 'The full impact of the school holiday period will not be seen until the start of next week, so it may be premature to state that this is a disastrous half term for retailers. However, based on this information the signs are not good at the moment.'
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