Easter occurred a week earlier this year than in 2009, with the week of Good Friday and the uplift in footfall that this delivers occurring in March rather than April. Despite this, the results for April suggest that the high street is becoming more resilient, with an increase in footfall of 9.5% from March compared with an increase of 5.6% from March to April 2009.

As importantly as the monthly increase is the annual change recorded in April of +0.8%. Not only is this the first positive year on year change in footfall in any month during 2010, but it is also an increase in the annual change that was recorded in April 2009 of +0.7%.

These results contrast strongly with the BRC-KPMG Sales Monitor which recorded a year on year decrease in sales across all categories of 2.3% in April. BRC cited a key reason for the annual decline in sales being the fact that the week of Good Friday and Easter Saturday fell in March this year rather than in April. Despite the impact on store sales, however, the earlier Easter appears to have had no impact on high street footfall, even in the light of a significant annual increase in non-store sales of 15.9% in April.

What is significant, however, is that all of the uplift in footfall from March to April is a result of a significant increase in footfall of 14.4% in the first week of the month, from the week of Good Friday to the week of Easter Monday. In contrast to the first week, the change in each of the other three weeks of the month was negative, averaging a decline of 2.2%.