The Easter weekend offered some respite to UK’s retail and restaurant outlets with footfall in the nation’s famed high streets rising by more than twice when compared with the Easter weekend of 2020. Recent analysis by Springboard reveals that high street footfall was up by 134% on Good Friday and Easter Saturday while Easter Sunday registered a 100% YoY increase in footfall.

The UK has eased its lockdown measures, allowing cafes, restaurants and food outlets to offer takeaways on orders, although dining facilities remain shut for now. Starting next week, however, the government will allow pubs and restaurants to service their customers outdoors even as non-essential retail outlets will also resume operations.

The increased footfall aligns with estimates by PwC indicating a boom in consumer spending driven by pent-up demand and higher savings among UK consumers who were forced to remain at home for several months owing to the coronavirus pandemic. Economists at PwC have also forecast an uptick in consumer spending on restaurants during the holiday season this year.

Consumer markets lead at PwC, Lisa Hooker, notes, It is great to see that consumer sentiment among the over 65s is now net positive for the first time in our data reflecting the success of the vaccine programme, giving them a way out of the pandemic and back to normality.”