Shoppers flock to Oxford St in West End’s busiest week since last November
The West End has enjoyed busiest week since November 2021 following the easing of Covid restrictions last month.
In the first full week since plan B measures eased, areas including Covent Garden and Oxford St, saw a return of shoppers.
Footfall hit 79 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, the highest seen since last autumn, before the Omicron coronavirus variant emerged.
Total daily footfall was up on average 10 per cent in the week Thursday 27 January to Wednesday 2 February, compared to the week prior, according to the New West End Company.
Morning commuter footfall was up on average nine per cent week-on-week, the business group said.
Weekend footfall was on average 79 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, and up by 11 per cent from the previous weekend.
Artjom Hatsaturjants head of business intelligence at New West End Company said:
“Footfall figures for the first full week since the easing of Plan B restrictions show that London’s West End has experienced a promising boost.
“We have also seen morning commuter footfall growing at a pace. The return of office employees and UK visitors will no doubt be a relief to retailers and hospitality businesses in the district.
“We must now see concerted efforts to attract high spending overseas tourists back to the capital to help accelerate the recovery of London’s businesses from the challenges of the last two years.”
It comes as national data has revealed that the easing of Covid measures did inspire shoppers back to shopping destinations.
However, January footfall was down compared to December levels.
According to the latest footfall insight data from Springboard, footfall worsened slightly in January over the month as a whole, to 20.8 per cent below pre-pandemic levels. This was compared to footfall that was down 18.6 per cent on 2019 levels in December 2021.
However, the easing of plan B Covid measures did inject some life into UK retail destinations in the latter half of January.
The second half saw footfall increase to 19.2 per cent below 2019 levels, from -21.5 per cent below 2019 in the first two weeks.
Footfall in central London was strengthened by around a quarter between the second and the fourth week of the month.