Valentine's Day is a key date for most retailers and leisure occupiers. With an estimate of £458.7 million spent on Valentine's Day in the UK this year (according to PwC), this day now rivals retail events such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Chris Fowler, Relationship Manager at LDC, looks at the impact Valentine's Day had on Footfall in Nottingham and Brighton.

The SmartStreetSensor project is a groundbreaking footfall study that was launched by LDC and UCL last year. Since the birth of the project, we've had leading retailers, BIDs and local councils come on board and the project has gone from strength to strength.

Currently over 60% of our Footfall devices have been allocated as part of the SmartStreetSensor Project.

Last Friday, July 15th, I attended the launch and first annual retail seminar of the “National Retail Research Association Knowledge Exchange Centre” (NRRKEC).

Based in Nottingham Business School (Nottingham Trent University), NRRKEC identify and collate information about academic retail related research carried out across UK HEIs for retailers.

The seminar focussed on the impact of research on the Future of High Street. After being warmly welcomed by Nelson Blackley, Senior Research Associate at the NRRKEC, Prof Kim Cassidy, Academic Director of the center introduced the seminar with the objectives of the NRRKEC and the agenda for the day.

Footfall along with the weather are the most often used and sometimes misunderstood words in the world of places/retail.

Often the data is incomplete, inaccurate or being disseminated for reasons beyond the actual meaning of the data.

Stats abound everywhere, every week from footfall being 9% down on high streets in the last 5 years to 3% down in shopping centres and 5% up in retail parks but what does this really mean and most importantly should we believe it?

Data be it big or small, should be transparent and clear.

The Local Data Company (LDC), in partnership with University College London (UCL) and the Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC) launched on Thursday June 30th, the most comprehensive study of High Street footfall patterns across Great Britain to date.

In this blog post, Chris looks at the close relationship between coffee consumption footfall and analyses footfall profile's of different location types across GB.

The recent UK Coffee Week got me thinking about the close relationship between coffee consumption and footfall, now that the major brands have multiple outlets in most of the UK’s prime locations, and have persuaded many of us that the concept of ‘morning coffee, afternoon tea’ is highly out-dated - and that 24/7 coffee is a good thing.

I exclude myself from this generalisation, as I still consider myself proudly old-fashioned when it comes to liquid refreshment. Yet, the more I travel from the Midlands to work in London, I find myself increasingly meeting clients in coffee shops or finding the nearest outlet with a clean table and free WiFi - I can feel myself being dragged into the post-midday coffee culture. With opening hours well into the evening in some of the busiest locations, the days of coffee being a morning rital are long gone and it seems that almost any location is now viable for a coffee shop, as long as a certain volume and quality of footfall can be guaranteed.