Look to Rotherham for a spot of shopping as town bucks the trend

The South Yorkshire town bucked a grim retail trend in September by recording a staggering 32.3 per cent increase in footfall year-on-year. The national picture was more gloomy in Britain’s major cities.

According to monitoring service Springboard’s National High Street Index, national footfall year-on-year in UK high streets in September recorded a decline of 1.2 per cent. However, excluding the regional cities, the UK saw an overall year-on-year footfall increase of 1.3 per cent. Springboard also reported that the warm weather seen in late September and during the first weekend of October increased the number of shoppers visiting retail centres.

Figures provided by analysts at Springboard, who monitor footfall in 85 UK towns and cities, showed that throughout September regional cities continued to see an annual decline in footfall above the national average, with a year-on-year drop of 7.6 per cent.

Provincial towns, however, were resilient with Rotherham (+32.3 per cent), Mansfield (+13.4 per cent), Grimsby (+11.3 per cent) and Newport (+7.5 per cent) seeing year-on-year footfall rises. Steve Booth, chief executive of Springboard, said: “The high street continues to face challenges but it is clearly fighting back.”

Bernadette Rushton, town centre manager in Rotherham, said: “In September, Rotherham experienced a huge increase in the number of shoppers visiting the town, which we can attribute to a number of initiatives including our Shop Local scheme.”