{"id":118085,"date":"2026-09-05T07:07:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T07:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/118085\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T07:07:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T07:07:13","slug":"back-to-school-rescues-uk-footfall-as-heat-gets-to-shoppers-in-august-mri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/118085\/","title":{"rendered":"Back-to-school rescues UK footfall as heat gets to shoppers in August, MRI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n                                    Published<br \/>\n                                    <\/p>\n<p>                                        September 4, 2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-content col-md-8 offset-md-1\">\n                                Ongoing heatwaves (negative) and back-to-school season (positive) played their parts in defining the UK\u2019s retail footfall across 2-30 August period.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"news-image\" style=\"width:100%;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/eea0.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1296\" height=\"914\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/> Image: Pixabay<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-md-8 offset-md-1 article-content--texte\">There was a clear shift from summer into preparing for BtS helping footfall across all UK retail destinations rise by 0.1% month on month and 1% year on year, according to MRI Software figures. It also highlighted more positive gains for Shopping Centres (+2.3%), less so for Retail parks (+0.8%), while high streets recorded \u201ca more challenging month\u201d, with activity falling by 1.2% month on month.<\/p>\n<p>And the UK&#8217;s five heatwaves in less than three months disrupted visits across many towns and cities, particularly when temperatures approached 38\u00b0C in parts of southern England.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-md-8 offset-md-1 article-content--texte\">High streets were among the hardest hit with visits falling 9.5% week on week and 8.6% year on year on 13 August, while coastal destinations benefited (+2.4% week on week) as consumers sought relief closer to the seaside.<\/p>\n<p>The opposite trend emerged during the final week of the month. Heavy rain and flash flooding across parts of the UK led to sharp declines in high street footfall (-3% on the week), while shopping centres (+2.4%) and retail parks (+1.4%) proved more resilient as consumers favoured indoor environments.<\/p>\n<p>MRI said: \u201cWhile the overall picture remained stable, the story was one of changing consumer priorities. Throughout August, shoppers likely combined retail, dining and leisure into a single journey, visiting destinations that offered convenience, experiences and value beyond shopping alone.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOf course,\u00a0 back-to-school shopping dominated as a key footfall driver. Shopping centres, in particular, benefited from this trend, while MRI Software&#8217;s latest Insights from the Inside survey found that 50% of store managers saw back-to-School shopping build momentum throughout August.\n                            <\/p>\n<p>\n                                Copyright \u00a9 2026 FashionNetwork.com All rights reserved.\n                            <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published September 4, 2026 Ongoing heatwaves (negative) and back-to-school season (positive) played their parts in defining the UK\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[4188,1109,20622,21886,44554,5,6],"class_list":["post-118085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","tag-beauty","tag-fashion","tag-luxury","tag-network","tag-professionals","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117217175150122137","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}