Shoppers desert the high street, Springboard reports

The number of customer visits to shops has fallen by the greatest amount on record for March and April. Springboard, a retail research business that has been monitoring footfall in Britain since 2009, said that a 3.3% fall was recorded in April that, after a 6% decline in March, had resulted in an “unprecedented drop” of 4.8% over the two months. “Not since the depths of recession in 2009 has footfall over March and April declined to such a degree and even then the drop was less severe, at 3.8%,” Diane Wehrle, marketing and insights director at Springboard, said. The Times also reports that a monthly consumer spending index from Visa showed that spending in “face-to-face” shops fell by 5.4%t in April compared with the previous year, the biggest fall since 2012. This came after a 2.9% fall in March. It also has an article on how snow-hit shops are left fearing the economic weather has changed. Click here for the full Times Springboard article (£) Click here for the full Times Visa article (£) Click here for the full Times high street economy article (£)