Last week saw a fall of 8.1% in footfall compared with the same week last year and was 0.6% down on the week before. In town centres the figures were a little more positive dropping just 5.3% on the year and up slightly on last week (0.2%).

It hasn’t been an easy year so far for retail. The summer season was late in taking off and the World Cup had an unexpectedly negative effect on footfall. And now the prolonged warm weather is distracting people from getting out and buying their winter woollies.

In Brighton there were additional problems in August as the re-routed Pride Parade costs retailers several million in lost sales in the middle of the peak summer trading season.

However, looking forward Natasha Burton, spokesperson for Footfall is hopeful that October will be a good month for retailers. She says, “Once seasonal clothes shopping begins, we would expect to see a recovery for retailers though, overall, 2006 has been be a frustrating year. Retailers will now be hoping that October fares better than September, with Halloween continuing to grow as a retail phenomenon. Last year, shopper numbers increased by over 13% during the Halloween period and a repeat performance would help alleviate general concerns for the retail sector.”