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Welsh retail footfall saw an uplift thanks to summer holiday shoppers but was still well below pre-pandemic levels. That was according to new research from the Welsh Retail Consortium.

Figures from last month show that Welsh footfall decreased by 13.1%, compared to a year-on-three-year (Yo3Y) comparison of August 2019. This was 2.7 percentage points better than July but worse that the º£½ÇÊÓƵ average decline of 12.4% Yo3Y.

Of the nations and regions of the º£½ÇÊÓƵ, the decline was only greater in North East England, which recorded a decline of minus 13.3%, and Scotland, recording a decrease in footfall of minus 14.8%.

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The shallowest decline on three years pre-pandemic was South West England at minus 8.7%.

GROWTH RANK	NATION AND REGION	% GROWTH Yo3Y
1	South West England	-8.7%
2	East Midlands	-8.7%
3	North West England	-10.4%
4	West Midlands	-10.7%
5	England	-11.2%
6	Northern Ireland	-11.5%
7	London	-11.5%
8	Yorkshire and the Humber	-11.6%
9	South East England	-12.8%
10	East of England	-12.9%
11	Wales	-13.1%
12	North East England	-13.3%
13	Scotland	-14.8%

Shopping centre footfall declined by 30.1% in August (Yo3Y) in Wales, an improvement on the decline of 35.1% in July but still worse than the decline of 28.9% in June.

Footfall in Cardiff last month decreased by 12.7% (Yo3Y), 2.8 percentage points better than July.

Of the º£½ÇÊÓƵ cities, the decline in Cardiff was higher than Belfast (minus 13.1%), London (minus 15.0%), Bristol (minus 17%), and Leeds (minus 22.1%).