The warmer weather in April reversed the fortunes of high streets, new footfall figures reveal.
Shopper numbers were down 5.2% year-on-year in the previous month, with high streets suffering the great slump, at 7%. But the latest data from the British Retail Consortium/Springboard Footfall and Vacancies Monitor shows that April footfall was 1.0% higher than a year ago.

What's more, high streets reported the greatest rise, 3.4%, their strongest performance since December 2011. Out-of-town centres were up 0.3% but footfall in shopping centres fell 3.0%.

The overall rise of 1.0% is the strongest performance since December 2011, when footfall increased 5.7%. The BRC says the warmer weather had a noticeable impact on the figures, with footfall improving as temperatures rose.

By contrast, the national town centre vacancy rate in the UK was 11.9% in April, up from 10.9% in January, and the highest rate since the survey began in July 2011.

BRC director general Helen Dickinson said: "It's a major concern that the vacancy rate has reached a record high, driven by increases in almost every part of the UK, with some regions like the south west seeing a significant leap in empty shop numbers.

"At least there's some cheer on offer in the footfall figures, driven by a respectable showing for high streets, but this compares against a very rainy April 2012, when bad weather left a lot of shoppers running for cover. The unsettled weather at the start of the month seems to have created pent-up demand, which brought many of us out to shop when more spring-like weather finally made an appearance."

Diane Wehrle, retail insights director at Springboard, put high streets' relatively good performance partly down to the fact that many of the high-profile retail failures have been located in malls, creating holes in their retail frontages which have adversely affected their attractiveness to shoppers.

"The resilience of high streets is also likely to be a function of their diversity, as they have an offer that spans more than just retail.

"It is footfall outside usual retail hours that's demonstrating the strongest performance," she added: "up 4.9% year-on-year in April after 18.00 hours compared with 3.4% over 24 hours."