The latest data published by Centre for Cities in August 2021, using mobile phone data from Locomizer and anonymised offline credit card spend data from Beauclair, shows that although some city centres in the UK have seen a slight recovery since lockdown restrictions were lifted, a full recovery is highly unlikely to happen as long as infection rates continue to rise and the threat of further restrictions is a possibility.

Until retailers core customers return, which will only happen once most return to working from their offices, which is looking highly unlikely, high street shops will continue to struggle.

Data shows that some of the worst performing cities in terms of footfall and spend between February and July 2021 were London, Oxford, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Nottingham, Cardiff, Belfast, Slough, Aldershot and Ipswich, most of which are the UK’s largest city centres.  People are still staying away from crowds, have got used to ordering online and are not in a good financial position to enable them to spend.  Also, the bad weather hasn’t helped as well as the lack of tourists, which has hit certain towns and cities such as London, Windsor, Bath, Belfast, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Cambridge, Southend and Brighton very hard.

As long as high street shops continue to struggle, the property market will struggle too.  If shops cannot pay their rent then landlords cannot pay their banks.  This will inevitably lead to values of high street shops falling, rent and mortgage arrears increasing and ultimately landlords evicting tenants and banks repossessing properties.