High street spending down by a fifth as home working bites

WORKERS declining to return to the office are hurting the recovery of Britain’s high streets as new figures show sales are still a fifth below pre-pandemic levels during weekdays.

Research from Springboard found that high street stores are much emptier than they were pre-pandemic between Mondays and Fridays, particularly around offices, coming almost a year after all Covid restrictions were eased.

Footfall in high street shops was shown to be down more than 18pc on 2019 levels on weekdays, whereas at weekends it is just 11.8pc below prepandemic levels.

Analysts at the data company said this was down to a higher proportion of people still working from home part of the week. Springboard said more than half of UK consumers were working remotely for at least one day a week.

Official data recently revealed that around 14pc of workers still work from home exclusively. This is despite a drop-off in employers advertising remote roles.

Diane Wehrle, Springboard’s insight director, said hybrid working was now an established feature in the UK economy and would weigh on the return of shoppers into high streets, particularly in city centres.