2 days Ago By Iain Gray
Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Belfast News Letter, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. A new survey shows that the number of people walking through the doors of shops around the province in December was down by 5.8% on the previous month – and November had itself been down from October.
Things are bad all over, with all 11 of the regions covered by the survey recording a drop in footfall. Advertisement Advertisement But Northern Ireland was easily the worst, the province’s collapse coming in at more than double the UK average decline. Meanwhile Belfast was the second-worst performing major city in the UK, showing a 7.
2% fall in footfall in December compared to the previous month. Only Bristol had a steeper decline. Most of the cities surveyed recorded a fall, with only Birmingham and Glasgow coming in with an improvement – though Glasgow’s was off the back of a particularly bad November, and the increase was very slight.
The figures were produced by the British Retail Consortium and monitoring firm Sensormatic. Advertisement Advertisement According to Neil Johnston, director of the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium, the survey shows this year’s “golden quarter” – the last three months of the year, normally boom time for retailers – was drab and lacklustre. “Black Friday promotions gave a fillip to foot-traffic [in December] early on,” he said.
“However, across the month as a whole footfall was feeble and fell across all destinations. “There’s little denying these are disappointing figures for retailers with bricks and mortar premises, many of whom were hoping for a final flourish to the year and a good Christmas to help weather increasing costs and tide them over the leaner months early in the new year. "That said, there is rarely an exact correlation between footfall performance and retail sales growth, and with a third of non-food retail sales purchased online, it may be that retailers have proved adept at harnessing technology to get through to consumers who may not have the inclination or time to travel to shops.
Advertisement Advertisement “This remains a period of significant flux for retail. Weak footfall, sluggish demand, rising government-mandated cost pressures, and an uncertain outlook are all weighing on stores. The structural, economic, and regulatory changes affecting retail show few signs of abating.
” For Glyn Roberts, chief executive of Retail NI, the figures are concerning, but not yet cause for alarm – though he warned of an impending cliff-face that’s set to challenge retail in just three months’ time. "Footfall isn’t everything,” he told the News Letter. “Sales are the only thing that matters in terms of the health of the High Street, and it’s too early to have that information yet.
"That’s not to downplay these figures, which are very concerning, but I do think we need more information before we can come to any conclusions. Advertisement Advertisement “What really concerns me is the cliff-edge we’re facing in April, with higher National Insurance, higher rates and higher Living Wage costs all to come in at the same time. "That’s will really hurt small and independent retailer, and Northern Ireland has a much higher concentration of them than the rest of the UK.
” Mr Roberts added that he wants to see a rates relief programme brought in, similar to one announced for England..
