Numbers fall, but less than expected
London trading appears to have bounced back after the impact of Thursday's incidents. According to customer traffic analyst SPSL, footfall dropped 77 per cent in the central London congestion zone on July 7, compared with the previous Thursday. It fell 74 per cent compared with July 7 last year.

Although high-street shopper numbers were down the next day, comparisons were much less severe. Traffic on Friday July 8 was down 24 per cent week on week and 26 per cent year on year.

Weekend comparisons were muted. Saturday's fall in traffic was negligible compared with the previous Saturday, but SPSL director of knowledge management Dr Tim Denison noted that this was because of the impact of Live8 and the culmination of the Wimbledon tennis tournament. Year-on-year comparisons for July 9 were down 21.1 per cent.

Sunday's year-on-year and week-on-week comparisons were down 28 per cent and 23.9 per cent respectively.

Denison said: 'Government warnings of an attack on shopping centres on April 24 and April 25 last year caused falls in shopper numbers of 22.9 per cent and 33.9 per cent for Saturday and Sunday respectively, in what were seen as target shopping centres. That, and evidence of the fall in shopper numbers in New York and Madrid after terror attacks, led us to anticipate falls of about 50 per cent this weekend in London. We'd underestimated the resilience of Londoners.'