UK shopper footfall in central London drops 30 per cent versus last week

Shopper numbers in central London on Christmas Eve were 30.3 per cent lower than the previous Friday as the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus kept many people from high streets, according to data from Springboard.

City centres outside London saw a 10 per cent drop in shoppers in the hours up to midday versus a week earlier, the data showed. Footfall across all destinations rose 13.9 per cent on a week ago, but was 21 per cent lower than on Christmas Eve 2019, Springboard said.