High street alarm as shoppers shun the Christmas rush

THE number of visitors to Britain’s high streets over the past six weeks is ‘significantly’ down on last year, raising fears of a disaster for some of Britain’s struggling shops.

Figures provided to The Mail on Sunday by data firm Springboard, give the first clear picture of the festive shopping season so far.

They show that the number of visitors to retail parks, shopping centres and high streets fell by 3.5 per cent in the six weeks from November 1 to the end of last week.

The number of visitors to high street shops alone was down 4.5 per cent in the period. The drop appears to have accelerated since the beginning of autumn.

The 12-month average across all locations – high street, shopping centres and retail parks – to the end of September was down 1.7per cent compared with the previous year.

Springboard director Diane Wehrle said: ‘Despite the increase of 3.3 per cent on Black Friday, versus Black Friday last year, footfall over the period as a whole has dropped significantly.’

Meanwhile, sources said supermarkets had also suffered a poor start to the key Christmas trading period.

One senior retailer acknowledged the long-term challenge faced by high streets, but added: ‘What we have seen in the past few weeks has not only affected high street shops.

‘Supermarkets are also struggling with sales in negative territory pretty much across the board.’

Another source said the usual festive sales pick-up had yet to arrive for the grocery sector which was ‘running a week behind where it was last year’.

The warnings follow a string of high profile retail failures, including Mothercare’s UK chain which collapsed last month.

Last week, Ted Baker warned of a 90 per cent profits plunge and announced the departure of its chief executive and executive chairman. It was the retailer’s fourth profits warning in a year.

It said ‘unprecedented’ levels of discounting on the high street had wiped out most of its profits and the shares plunged by a third.

The data from Springboard echoes warnings issued by grocery monitor Kantar earlier this month that food sales had been sluggish for the three months to December 1.

Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at the market research firm, said: ‘We’re yet to see consumers ramp up their spending in the run-up to Christmas.’

Retailers are hoping to see more shoppers now the General Election is over, but polling day itself was an example of the slowdown.

Wehrle said: ‘On Thursday, footfall declined by 2.2 per cent from the same day in the previous week. Although in part this may be due to rain which was heavy in many locations across the UK.’

Last night one fashion company chairman spoke for many when he said: ‘Let’s hope with the Election out of the way, people can now get on with enjoying Christmas.’