Springboard has published its annual footfall review for 2020 and the figures drive home the catastrophic effect coronavirus had on all retail venues.

The data shows retail parks continue to be the most resilient retail destinations, central London has been hit hardest by the collapse in office workers and tourists going to city centres, and tracks the rise of customers shopping locally. 

Among the doom and gloom, however, the figures also offer retail and hospitality businesses a glimmer of hope for the future. 

Plumbing the depths

Springboard has broken 2020 into key periods: pre-Covid (January 1 to mid-March); lockdown; (mid-March to end of June); retail reopening (end of June to the beginning of November); and tier four, alongside the two more recent lockdowns (beginning of November through to end of December). 

At the beginning of the year, footfall was generally trending flat across retail destinations in much of the UK in much the same way it had throughout 2019. 

The data shows footfall fell to its absolute lowest during the first lockdown, falling to numbers “never before recorded” according to Springboard. 

Tracking across the year, UK high streets were the worst affected by the crisis, with footfall down 45.2% across the year.

Not only was footfall the lowest on high streets overall, but it also recovered slower than other destinations during the summer months of relaxed restrictions and the Eat Out to Help Out scheme. 

Shopping centres suffered too, with overall footfall down 41.5%. The largest shopping centres struggled the most. Across the year, footfall at shopping centres over 500,000 sq ft was down 46.6%, compared to -38.8% for centres between 100,000 sq ft and 250,000 sq ft. 

As in the previous year, 2020 also highlighted the durability of out-of-town retail parks as a retail destination. Retail park footfall was down just 23%. Springboard said this was because retail parks are “almost perfectly set up to deal with Covid” with strong food offerings, free car parking and plenty of outdoor space.  

Rise of localism

Springboard data also tracks the fortunes in the last year of UK retail destinations geographically. 

Pre-Covid areas like central and outer London, regional city centres and many market towns were seeing footfall trending flat or edging up. 

However, from the first lockdown, the plight of regional city centres, and central London most clearly, has been stark. 

Since the first lockdown, when footfall plummeted to -91% year on year, central London has never really recovered. Even during the summer, footfall remained stubbornly under 50% and by the time London went back into tier four in early December, footfall was back to first-lockdown levels. 

Overall, central London footfall was down 58.7% across the year. Regional cities were the next worst hit, down 48.2%. 

Conversely, in a trend Springboard called “the rise of localism”, market towns were the most resilient for footfall, down just 36.6% overall. 

Coastal towns also enjoyed a relatively strong year, with footfall recovering particularly strongly in the summer months to -13% year on year. Market towns and outer London boroughs also recovered to similar levels during this period.

These locations were aided by Eat Out to Help Out, a rise in local tourism and a growing desire among consumers to support local businesses in the face of the virus. 

The lockdown in November saw numbers drop again across all locations but in nothing like as pronounced numbers, particularly in towns and outer London boroughs. However, by December, numbers were again beginning to decline to the historic low levels first seen at the outset of the crisis.  

Hope springs eternal

Last year was always going to be a terrible year in terms of footfall. With non-essential retailers being closed for more of the year than they were open, the leaking of customers online in many categories has become a flood. 

Bricks-and-mortar sales for 2020 were down 20%, compared to 3% in 2019. That figure will have been inflated by the surge in sales seen by the grocers and other essential retailers and is likely much lower for non-essential retailers.

By contrast, online spending has grown rapidly, accounting for 27.7% of total retail sales in 2020, compared to 19.1% in 2019. 

Retail property vacancy rates are currently the highest they have been in over a decade at 10.6% nationally. 

However, as the upwards footfall trend during the summer shows, there is pent-up customer demand waiting to be released. 

In light of the vaccine rollout, Springboard predicts footfall in the second quarter of the year to surge and for growth to continue throughout the year as customers enjoy hard-won freedoms. 

The last year has been the toughest test the retail sector has ever faced. While there are still dark months ahead, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.