High street footfall increases but big cities struggle as people continue to work from home

Footfall in many of the UK’s town and city centres recovered to pre-lockdown levels this summer, but the share of people returning to the workplace has not increased since late June, despite the Government’s campaign to get people back into offices.

New data from the Centre for Cities’ Street Recovery Tracker, in partnership with Nationwide Building Society, reveals that while footfall in many of the UK’s town and city centres recovered to pre-lockdown levels this summer the share of people returning to the workplace has not increased since late June, despite the Government’s campaign to get people back into offices.

Centre for Cities and Nationwide are working together to better understand how large cities and towns continue to be impacted by Covid-19, particularly if the recent rise in cases is sustained.

Overall city centre footfall up by 7% in August

According to mobile phone tracking data, despite the continued reluctance of people to return to their places of work, overall town and city centre footfall increased by seven-percentage points to 63% of pre-lockdown levels since the beginning of August.

In 14 of the UK’s 63 largest cities and towns, city centre footfall in August exceeded pre-lockdown levels. Seaside towns such as Blackpool, Bournemouth and Southend and smaller cities such as Birkenhead and Chatham proved particularly popular with visitors.

Again, overall footfall in larger cities remains well below the national average. In Central London footfall is still at just 31% of pre-lockdown levels, in Manchester it is 49% and in Birmingham it is 52%.

But levels of people returning to their workplace remains flat

The data shows weekday worker footfall in the centres of the UK’s largest cities and towns remains at just 17% of pre-lockdown levels on average – exactly the same as it was at the end of June.

The share of people returning to their places of work is even lower in many of the largest and most economically prosperous cities with London, Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester and Cardiff all still below the UK city average.

Recovery has been stronger in smaller cities and large towns where weekday worker footfall is on average 27% of pre-lockdown levels. In Mansfield the share of people back at their place of work is now at 42% of what it was in February. However, nowhere has yet reached even half of pre-lockdown levels, so the UK has a long way to go if office life is to ever return to ‘normal’.

The persistently low numbers of people going back to work in city centres, particularly in big cities, reinforces the concerns for the future of shops, cafes, restaurants and bars that depend on office workers for custom.      

Centre for Cities’ Chief Executive Andrew Carter said:

“Good weather, Eat Out To Help Out and a boost to domestic tourism have helped increase visitor numbers to the UK’s seaside towns, but we should not celebrate too soon. We do not know yet whether this will continue into autumn and our biggest cities, which we rely on to power the UK’s economy, are still struggling in the wake of lockdown.

“There is little indication that workers are heeding the Government’s call to return to their offices and city centre restaurants, pubs and shops face an uncertain future while they remain at home. So, unless we see a big increase in people returning to the office, the Chancellor must set out how he will support the people working in retail and hospitality who could soon find themselves out of a job.”

Mandy Beech, Nationwide’s Director of Branches, said:

“This latest research tells us Britain’s city and town centres continue to see significantly reduced footfall despite the nation having emerged from lockdown some time ago. However, there are positive signs that visitor numbers are picking up in many regional areas. While we can all hope life returns to normal quickly, the reality is that progress will be both uncertain and slow as workers look to return to their offices over the coming months.

“As an organisation rooted in the UK’s cities and towns, we want to do what we can to serve our members as the nation rebalances itself. During lockdown we challenged ourselves to keep 90 per cent of our branches open and today that stands at 98 per cent. While our own footfall has fluctuated, our branch employees have been able to support call-centre colleagues to help meet demand. As a vital service, we will continue to work in this way as we understand and respond to the needs of our members at this time.”